Edinburgh played hosts to the Newport-Gwent Dragons for their last home match of the season and came away with their third home win in a row and their first against Newport for two years.
The unusually vocal Edinburgh support also helping by lending a good atmosphere to the, otherwise, empty spaces of Murrayfield Stadium.
Edinburgh opened the scoring almost immediately as a Welsh infringement from the gathered kick-off gave Chris Patterson a chance at goal. The home side full-back duly put the ball between the posts for a 3-0 lead. From the restart, Edinburgh put the visitors under sustained pressure for around 15-20 minutes, with wing, Tim Visser, being particularly prominent. The Welsh side had to put in some stout defence to hold them out, until they could rally round. The next ten minutes or so were a bit more even, then Dragon’s wing, Aled Brew, received the ball out wide and broke through to open the try count.
Again from the off, Edinburgh went on the offensive and three minutes later, Greg Laidlaw, galloped over the line from 20-odd metres out to score for Edinburgh. The half ended with Edinburgh in the lead 13-7.
The opening few minutes of the second half see-sawed back and forth, with the Welsh side coming close to scoring their second try, but giving away a penalty almost on the Edinburgh try line. With the kick, and subsequent line out, taking Edinburgh well up the field, a skilful passage of passing play, left Visser with the ball and a straight-ish run in for the host’s second, and Visser’s 14th (of the season), try. Paterson kicked the conversion to take Edinburgh further ahead 20-7.
Less than 10 minutes later, the Paterson-Visser combo triumphed again, this time Paterson going over for Edinburgh’s third and then going on to convert, taking their points tally up to 27 to the Dragons’ 7.
The Dragons weren’t finished yet, however and with less than 20 minutes to go, just after a successful penalty kick, full-back Adam Hughes collected a kick-through to score the Welsh side’s second try to give them 15 points to Edinburgh’s 27.
The game finished with a flurry of Dragon’s attacks, punctuated by a double yellow-carding for a punch-up, with Edinburgh the winners from, what turned out to be, a fairly evenly matched encounter.
John Preece – Report and Photo (Visser on his way to Edinburgh’s second try)
Web – http://www.jlp-photography.co.uk/ProfessionalSports-Season2010
