Edinburgh secured their fourth win of the Guinness Pro12 season with a convincing 48-0 performance against Treviso at BT Murrayfield. It was the home side’s largest win in the competition since they beat Connacht 62-13 in 2009.
A match dominated throughout by the hosts was also tempered by an ugly mass brawl, resulting in the sending off of replacement prop Romulo Acosta for violent conduct.
Edinburgh scored two tries before the half-time break and another four after the red card. Head Coach Alan Solomons admitted post-match that while his side struggled in the aftermath of the incident, the response thereafter was satisfying.
“After the fracas, things were a little bit in disarray for about five or six minutes”, said Solomons.
“But we then settled down and got a couple of tries; I thought that was really positive. I was happy with the performance.”
On the contrary, flanker Roddy Grant believed his side seized an opportunity to secure the much sought after bonus point try.
“It certainly broke up the game. They had a man down, but we also had a man down for that period. It was a big moment in the game, we knew we had to push on.”
Edinburgh scored their first try with scarcely a minute on the clock through Sam Hildalgo-Clyne. The scrum half added a penalty shortly after, but Solomons believes that his team became complacent after building an early 10 point lead.
“I thought we started really well, but we lost our way a bit in that first half. We got ahead of ourselves”, said Solomons.
“It’s important that we stuck to our structures and our systems; make sure we had field position. Once we had that, they were in real difficulty and we went and did that in the second half”.
Man of the Match Grant was among the six try scorers, his try coming off the back of a staggering driving maul which started on the Treviso 22. Grant praised the strength of the Edinburgh pack, which dictated much of the game’s action.
“Treviso have a really good pack and that was our focus [to beat it]. We needed to outperform them. They’re a physical side”, said Grant.
“Rugby is a lot about the set-piece and we found out the hard way against Zebre. We vowed never to let that happen again.
Grant also said that while the performance was pleasing, there remains a lot of work ahead of the 1872 Cup double header.
“We’re happy with that, it’s a positive, but we are the first ones to not get ahead of ourselves.
“Back-to-back Glasgow games are huge for us. Two weeks, eight points up for grabs. We need to climb the Pro12 table. We’re doing well in Europe but we need to improve in the league.
“We’ve had a good couple of performances recently, as a pack. But we don’t get carried away with that, we’ve had a tendency to do that.”
Edinburgh face Glasgow in the first of the 1872 Cup matches next Satuday (27th December) at Scotstoun in a bid to recapture a trophy won by the Scotstoun side for the last six years.
Image of Roddy Grant from the match by John Preece
