On Tuesday past Mike Blair said,
"we're hopeful of getting a handful of players back",
in response to being asked about players being released from the Scotland squad.
And I was doubtful that it would come to pass, especially as he qualified this later in the interview by saying that the decision was dictated by “what's required by Gregor”. So I was quite pleased when the team
was released and Haining, Kinghorn, Vellacott, Bennett and maybe Dave Cherry who had been in Cardiff
despite having played for Edinburgh he night previously against Leinster in Dublin were all in the Edinburgh
23.
We were still without all of those who had started for Scotland against Wales and that's understandable. We were also without Hodgson which at the time was a little strange but on Sunday 20th the news that Jonny Gray was injured and in a moon boot perhaps made that more appropriate.
Given that there were 6 forwards who remained unavailable for Edinburgh it was up front that there was some concern but if the missing forwards would have constituted 100% then the 8 that started against Munster was probably at 75-80% in my estimation.
There were a few standout performances in that shadow 8 too and ironically it was the young team of Muncaster and Boyle that took the plaudits in that regard.
The backline was nearly top line. Perhaps only the absence of Darcy Graham arguably weakened it. My top back three being Moyano, Graham and Boffelli at 15 where I think he can be more influential.
The bench looked a little underpowered.
Ultimately despite the absences it wasn’t those factors that lost this game for Edinburgh but more the errors below -
1st half
22 secs, Penalty, not rolling away Glen Young
3.07, Stripped in contact, Nick Haining
4.17, penalty, no release, Conor Boyle, 3-0
7.49, penalty, holding on, James Lang
12.15, penalty, not releasing, Adam McBurney
15.55, penalty, not releasing, Lee-Roy Aralifo, 13-0
21.03, penalty, not rolling away, Marshall Sykes & 10 metres for back chat
28.07, scrum, not using, Ben Vellacott
39.37, missed touch, Blair Kinghorn
39.30, penalty, high tackle, James Lang, 18-10
2nd half
40.58, missed touch, Emiliano Boffelli
43.24, crossfield kick into touch, James Lang
44.46, loose pass, Blair Kinghorn
51.50, penalty, side entry, Mark Bennett
56.10, dropped pass, Mesulame Kunavula
56.55, incomplete pass, Blair Kinghorn, 25-13
65.12, Scrum, Stripped in contact, Boan Venter
67.01, dropped pass, Jake Armstrong
68.00, incomplete pass, Blair Kinghorn
73.48, scrum, forward pass, Mesu Kunavula
74.58, penalty, collapsing scrum
78.42, penalty, not releasing, Charlie Savala
This isn’t a go at the players involved because there's 22 errors here shared between 15 players so everyone contributed if that's the way to describe it.
And it could have been very different. We scored 10 points between the two penalties at 21 mins and 39 minutes without reply. In the second half we scored 3 points between the half kicking off and first penalty in that period at 51 mins without reply. So overall when we weren’t giving away needless penalties we were 13-0 to the good.
We also decided twice to go for the corner with a certain 3 points on offer at 59 and 64 minutes. Even one of those would have made it 27-16 with a decent amount of time to get back up field so those are questionable decisions also. Add Henry’s converted try at 70 minutes and the score is 27 -23 and it may have put a bit more pressure on Munster for those last 10 minutes.
At the end of the game I was deflated but the more i've thought about it ,despite the huge error count, we were in the game until Zebo’s final try and the outcome could have been much different. Big positives too in the form of Conor Boyle and Ben Muncaster and in the carrying of Boan Venter (despite that dislodged ball).
We've lost the last 3 games on the trot. It was always going to be a hard period with international absences etc and it’s not going
to get any easier over the next few weeks but we have to keep at it. We can’t make that many errors again. Can we?
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