A hard day at the office all round for both Scotland and Edinburgh. Scotland flattered to deceive early on and then completely lost their way and the game. Edinburgh kept Leinster at bay for the first 20 minutes and battered away at their line with no success. At the 20 minute mark Conor Boyle was yellow carded and Leinster opened the scoring a few minutes later. Edinburgh fought the good fight thereafter but they were neither clinical or accurate enough to trouble the current champions and I feared we’d be nilled but a late rally at least got us on the board.
So club and country, both well beaten albeit in a different manner. Would the Edinburgh players denied to the club by international duty have changed anything had they been in Dublin?
Firstly
Mark Bennett
Nick Haining
Ben Vellacott
Jamie Hodgson
Who are in the wider Scotland squad but not selected for the 23 were left to pick splinters out their bums. It’s hard not to see that at least 2 of those would have improved Edinburgh on the night especially when you consider that at times against Leinster we looked a bit like Edinburgh under Cockers reign. Vellacott would have added an extra dimension and although I think Matt Currie has a bright future it’d be naive to think he is at Mark Bennett levels in terms of attack.
Edinburgh's back row, Conor Boyle in particular performed well on the night so i’m not sure that Haining would have made a big difference but to have him and Hodgson on the bench would have certainly been helpful. Incidentally it was great to see Boyle really make a significant impact on the game in such an abrasive way. With Watson rarely available for games in the URC (2 so far this season) and Crosbie on the injured list he is stepping up strongly.
Now it may be that the travel aspect is the reason that none of these were released to play for their club unlike Sam Johnson and Scott Cummings (who scored their winning try) that were for Glasgow at home against Munster but it’s not Outer Mongolia that Edinburgh flew to. They’d have been back in Scotland before the game against Wales kicked off. Scotland will have travelled with a few more than the match day squad in case someone is hurt in the warm up or slipped on a leek on the way to the Principality stadium but it won’t have been all of the 4 above.
Again we have to take into account that Leinster had a shedload of players away with Ireland but before you try and say that both sides were equally affected, consider this, Leinster had more international caps on their bench (162) than Edinburgh had in their entire twenty three man squad (123).
There were 8 Edinburgh players in Scotland's matchday squad against Wales. Based on comparative performances I reckon probably only Darcy Graham’s impact in that game would have significantly improved Edinburgh. Moyano had a pretty quiet game by the standards he’s set this season and Darcy was again on fire.
That said I've no doubt that Blair Kinghorn would have made a difference for Edinburgh alongside Vellacott and I wonder also if he would have given Scotland the spark that Russell seemed to be missing on the day. I understood the versatility argument about Kinghorn being on the bench but if Townsend is reluctant to use him in place of a below par Russell then it seems a bit pointless.
Verdict
Edinburgh have a poor record against Leinster ( who doesn’t?) and have lost heavily to them with both full strength and second string sides. As mentioned above the Irish side can call upon vast amounts of experience even at this time of year. A stacked Edinburgh against the side Leinster selected may have managed to win but even that's not a given. The inclusion of those not involved in Scotland's 23 may have made it a tighter game but I’m still saying it would have been a loss.
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