Pro Rugby – Edinburgh v Leinster, Guinness PRO12
Leinster take the points in Edinburgh
Despite a try in the first minute of the match, Edinburgh couldn’t quite finish off Leinster in Friday night’s Guinness PRO12 match at BT Murrayfield. In fact, a try in the dying seconds of the game by Leinster denied the Edinburgh side a deserved bonus point, while the visitors carried off the bonus point win.
It took Edinburgh less than two minutes to open the scoring with a try from Mike Allen which, virtually, repeated his try against Scarlets the previous week. Returning a clearing kick, the ball was slotted through the approaching defence by Duncan Weir, Allen running through to gather and touch down in the right corner. Unfortunately, he upended himself dangerously and had to be treated on-field, before going off for a head-injury assessment. Blair Kinghorn was the temporary replacement, before Allen came back on, but later went off again, Kinghorn coming on for the remainder. As all this was going on, Weir missed the touch-line conversion leaving the early score at 5-0.
Three minutes later, Edinburgh were on the offensive again and deep in the Leinster half., this time coming away with three points from Weir and an8-0 lead.
However, that was the last the home side saw of the score board in the first half as the visitors gathered themselves and started playing as expected of them. With 12 minutes on the clock, Leinster set up the attack which resulted in flanker, Dan Leavy sailing through a huge hole in the defence to score under the posts. Veteran wing, Isa Nacewa then added the extras for an 8-7 game.
The second Leinster try followed just before the 20 minute mark when a series of rucks and mauls deep in the Edinburgh 22 came to fruition, the ball ending up with centre, Garry Ringrose who slipped past Kinghorn and fought off the attentions of Weir to score. Nacewa then kicked the conversion and it was 14-8.
Leinster were now on a roll and nearly came away with another try, but for a fine, ‘last man’ tackle on Ringrose by Weir – acknowledged by the Leinster coaching staff – around the 22.
The resistance didn’t last long, though as Nacewa scored the visitors’ third try around the outside of the defence, then scored the kick to take the score out to 21-8.
And they weren’t quite done yet as, with less than five minutes until the break, another bout of piled-on pressure inside the home five metre line resulted in scrum half, Jamison Gibson-Park, diving around the side of a ruck to score the fourth – and bonus point try – before half time. Nacewa missed the kick, but the score was out to 26-8 and looking like an easy win for Leinster at this, relatively, early stage – an impression aided by Grant Gilchrist’s yellow with a minute left to play.
Edinburgh, therefore, had to start the second half a man down, but it wasn’t obvious from the field of play. Hamish Watson started the ball rolling with a powerful run upfield, breaking through several tackles, which immediately put the home side on the front foot and had the visitors scrambling to defend.
Five minutes in, Leavy was carded for a dangerous tackle and the kick took Edinburgh well into Leinster territory. Pressure eventually told and, fittingly, it was Watson who went over near the posts, off a series of rucks, to open the second half tally. Weir knocked the kick over and the score was 26-15 and the start of a half, during which, Edinburgh went on to dominate possession and territory.
Unfortunately, despite this, a string of handling errors meant that further scoring was limited to a single try in the 74th minute by Magnus Bradbury. A ‘nearly’ try had (not) been scored by full back, Glenn Bryce in the right corner, but he had put a foot in touch, so the score was ruled out by the TMO.
Despite all this, it was almost inevitable that Edinburgh were going to score again, and this they did through Bradbury. It followed on from another sustained period of pressure on the Leinster line with Bradbury receiving the ball from Sam Hidalgo-Clyne – on to replace the injured, Nathan Fowles – and evading a couple of tackles on his way to the line. Weir managed to miss the conversion, so the score was now 26-20.
With five minutes left, Edinburgh appeared to settle for the losing bonus point as they chose, through Weir, to kick clear a couple of times. Not finding touch, however, lead to Leinster’s Zane Kirchner, having an easy time returning the ball into the hosts’ half.
With the clock running down, a final push by the visitors saw Leavy crashing over for his second try on the night and, with Nacewa’s successful conversion, to take the final score out to 33-20, thus denying any League points to the Edinburgh side.
Images from the match will appear here over the next few days.