Two consecutive defeats albeit in different styles would appear to have done for Edinburgh’s league
campaign for season 20/21. Even in a year unaffected by COVID and offering knockout
games/qualification for the Champions Cup it would look highly unlikely at this stage that we could take
anything concrete from the season.
Mathematically we can still overtake Scarlets in third. They have 2 games to play. Away to Munster and then home against Connacht so they could conceivably get nothing from those two games giving them a total of 34 points for the season. However they are 14 points ahead of us so we would need to win all 3 of our remaining games with bonus points.
How many try bonuses have we had this season? ONE.
Have we won 3 games in a row this season? NOPE.
So, it's unlikely to the point of being unfeasible if not actually impossible.
Cardiff have two games.Their first is against Benetton but after we have played the Italians. You’d expect both teams to take the win against them as they haven't won all season.
Then it's a head to head with only 4th to play for. For Edinburgh even a win against Cardiff leaves us a trip to Rodney Parade, the day after the league final, to try and secure that coveted 3rd runner up status and qualification for the Challenge Cup.Whoop whoop.
Here’s the order in which those relevant games will be played-
It’s all a bit underwhelming.
The season has been a shit-show one way or another. What are the reasons for that?
The form of the players. Too many of those who were outstanding for us last season just haven’t been the same this year. Grant Gilchrist, player of the year and Luke Crosbie, young player of the year 2019-2020 haven’t reached the same heights. Bill Mata is only now starting to look like his old self. It’s not my intention to single those out but it’s hard to take a look at the squad and pick someone who is having a better year than they did last year (perhaps maybe Dave Cherry) and those I have mentioned were given the plaudits in the year gone so the difference is stark.
Availability of Players. This is not a new problem but allied to other issues we are having the fact that Duhan has played only 2 games in the PRO14 and scored 0 tries compared to 15 games and 7 tries in 2019-2020 is a big miss. Even on Saturday past there were a few instances where if he had been playing we may have scored. I am aware I have said previously that once he had announced his departure he shouldn't be selected and I stand by that but we haven’t adapted to life without him yet.
We always lose players to international rugby, that’s just how it works but even by usual standards we have seen less of our big players than usual. Then add injuries to that. Bill Mata, Hamish Watson and Jamie Ritchie played only 20 times between them in the PRO14 last year. This year it was a paltry 13 games.
How many times were they selected together this year? ONCE. Against Glasgow. We won.
Lack of Effective Attack. As previously mentioned we miss Duhan on the wing. However his presence and his effectiveness there covered up for the feeling that we don’t really have much attacking nous elsewhere in the backline. This isn’t helped by what looks like a log jam at half back. Neither of our first choice scrum half options are quick. I watch through my fingers when Groom goes to box kick and going back to the form argument above, Van Der Walt is definitely not at the level he was last year. His kicking from hand on Saturday was, I'm sorry to say, quite poor.
There have been a few inventive plays over the last wee while but too often we look like we have to rely on an individual moment of brilliance to give us any go forward.
According to PRO14 official stats we have gone from having the second best attack in the league in season 2019-20 to having the worst in 2020-2021.
Tactics? Personnel? Coaching? Something has to change here if we want to get back to winning ways.
COVID. I saw it suggested that perhaps we have suffered from lack of fans because of COVID. Let’s put that one to bed right now. Leinster have continued apace as have Ulster and Munster. Bottom line we are all in the same boat and I don’t believe for a minute that the Edinburgh players are more sensitive to playing behind closed doors than any other team. We are constantly told no one comes to watch us anyway.
To put it into perspective, it’s not all doom and gloom. If you are going to have a poor season this
would be the one to do it in. We still have the prospect of the knockout stage of the Champions Cup
and possibly the Rainbow Cup to look forward to.
Season 2020-2021 will hopefully allow us to get into our new stadium and with some new faces to refresh the roster the future should still be burnt orange.
Comments
Post a Comment