It didn't really take much time to review this game. Edinburgh's 2 tries came within the first 8 minutes and by HT it was 20-20 and not one more point was scored in the rest of the game.
Darcy Graham opened Edinburgh’s account after only 3 minutes. Edinburgh won a lineout just outside Stormers 22. Hutchison trucked it up the middle and quick ball at the base gave Van der Walt a little space. He dummied and went past a couple of Stormers defenders before feeding Graham who needed little invitation to cross the whitewash.
Ben Vellacott, who is quickly becoming almost irreplaceable in this Edinburgh side, added a second try on 6 minutes. Van der Walt again identified a gap in the Stormers defence and gave Vellacott a straightforward run in. The fly half knocked over conversion for both these tries so at this point it was 14-0 and confidence was high.
I've lamented the the slow starts that Edinburgh made in their last two games against Benetton and Scarlets so it was great to see that un-repeated but that positivity lasted only 2 minutes as Stormers went from a quick lineout in their own half picking holes in Edinburgh's defence left and right and scored through full back Warwick Gelant.
The two teams then exchanged penalties making the score 17-10 for Edinburgh with 8 minutes of the half to play.
Stormers won a ruck just inside Edinburgh's 22 and went left through their scrum half de Wet and centre Roos. Roos picked a gap in Edinburgh defence and went through it like a hot knife through butter. He committed Edinburgh’s last defender before feeding back to de Wet to score under the posts.
The numbers of the Edinburgh defenders on that side of the ruck in order of closeness to said ruck? 7, 5, 1, 2, and 6. The nearest back was Hutchison who was outside Jamie Ritchie. A lucky choice by the Stormers or did they realise it was all the big men on that side?
Both sides kicked another penalty each before the HT oranges and that was all she wrote. Both sides huffed and puffed in a very untidy second half but neither could get the extra points required to end the stalemate.
With 61 minutes gone Edinburgh came very close with a long range Van der Walt penalty which fell just short and then a few minutes later Stormers missed what looked like a straightforward one.
Edinburgh passed on another penalty opportunity which was closer than the one Van der Walt came up short with, although it was on the angle. Then with the clock deep in the red Stormers failed to convert what would have been a winning drop goal.
In the end a draw was probably a fair result for both sides.
I tweeted on Saturday night after the game that Edinburgh’s tackles stats were pretty poor in this match. However, in re-visiting those stats today I can see they were incomplete. So instead of successful tackles being 76% (34/45) they were actually 84% (70/83). Stormers went 1% better at 85%. As a testament to Edinburgh’s possession that was from an overall tackle count of 211.
So, not all doom and gloom but the point of the tweet was really to highlight that it's our defence that is letting us down at the moment. My evidence for that?
Take a look here https://www.unitedrugby.com/statistics
And you’ll note that as far as discipline goes Edinburgh are currently 15th out of the 16 teams in the championship. Only Cardiff have conceded more penalties thus far and it's a close run thing with Edinburgh on 40 and Cardiff on 41.
Scarlets - 18 penalties
Benetton - 13 penalties
Stormers - 10 penalties
If you've done the arithmetic you’ll note that adds up to 41 as confirmed via both ESPN Rugby and Ultimate Rugby so we could even be bottom of the discipline chart.
On the plus side that does appear to show an improving discipline.
To finish on a positive note I don't think anyone will complain about the style of rugby we are trying to play but as I said in my column on the match programme, we need to get the balance right.
We get another chance to do that next Saturday.
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