Rugby – Edinburgh v Dragons, Guinness PRO12

Edinburgh leave it late for the win

Edinburgh indeed left it late to secure their first win in 10 matches with an 83^rd minute try to snatch the points at Myreside on Friday night from, what had been up until late on, a – relatively – superior Dragons side.

In a largely forgettable match, Edinburgh fairly dominated the opening exchanges taking an early lead with an eighth minute, Jason Tovey penalty for 3-0, but after the first 15 minutes or so, the match degenerated into a mistake ridden encounter, with neither side covering themselves with much in the way of glory.

Glory did, briefly, shine on the visitors, however, as a well worked side-to-side move saw Dragons’ wing, Pat Howard, who ghosted through a gap down the left to score the first try, which was then converted by their 10, Angus O’Brien.

With a couple of minutes to go I the half, O’Brien was able to stretch the Dragons’ lead to 10-3 with a penalty from just inside Edinburgh’s half for 10-3.

The second half continued where the first had left off, with both sides making slight advantages, but failing to capitalise through a variety of errors, until, in a repeat move of their first try, the Dragons put full back, Carl Meyer, down the touch line for a try. O’Brien converted again and the score was 17-3 for the visitors.

Then, with 64 minutes on the clock, Edinburgh scored their first try….. Only, they hadn’t. Despite sub, Blair Kinghorn crossing the line, a TMO consultation lead to Allan Dell being yellow carded for an illegal clear-out at a ruck.

With just over 10 minutes to go, and the home fans seemingly resigned to another defeat, O’Brien hammered home a potential nail by scoring a 70^th minute penalty for 20-3.

With the odd fan leaving the ground, anticipating another failed attempt at a win, the Edinburgh side must have decided that they had built up enough of a false sense of security for the visitors and, so, turned up the wick. And what a wick it turned out to be.

A prolonged assault on the Dragons’ line lead to Tovey offloading the Kinghorn who reached over the line out of a last-ditch tackle for a – successful – try, converted by Tovey for 20-10.

The former Dragons stand-off, then proceeded to take his former side apart with a series of penetrating runs which, eventually, bore fruit with another defence-splitting pass to put Damien Hoyland through for their second try with less than two minutes on the clock. Tovey then converted for 20-17.

Edinburgh were now playing with their tails up and as the clock ticked over in to extra time, they were in the Dragons’ faces again. A string of penalties were quickly taken and the final move saw captain, Grant Gilchrist reached out from a pile of bodies to touch the line with the ball. The TMO suggested that he had a look, but all was good and, with another Tovey conversion, Edinburgh had taken the match at 24-20 in the 83^rd minute for their first win in any competition since the end of January.

Images from the match will appear here over the next few days.