Edinburgh V Leinster

First topic message reminder :

Friday 20th December
7.35PM
Murrayfield
BBC ALBA / RTE

REFEREE: Peter Fitzgibbon (IRFU), ASSISTANT REFEREES: Andrew McMenemy, TBC (both SRU) CITING COMMISSIONER: Iain Goodall (SRU) TMO: Iain Ramage (SRU)


Edinburgh   

15 Jack Cuthbert

14 Dougie Fife

13 Nick De Luca

12 Ben Atiga

11 Tom Brown

10 Greig Tonks

9 Greig Laidlaw CAPTAIN


1 Alasdair Dickinson

2 Ross Ford

3 Willem Nel

4 Grant Gilchrist

5 Ollie Atkins

6 Cornell Du Preez

7 Roddy Grant

8 David Denton


Substitutes

16 Aleki Lutui

17 Wicus Blaauw

18 Geoff Cross

19 Sean Cox

20 Mike Coman

21 Grayson Hart

22 Tony Fenner

23 Sam Beard


Leinster   

15: Zane Kirchner
14: Darragh Fanning
13: Brian O'Driscoll
12: Noel Reid
11: Luke Fitzgerald
10: Ian Madigan
9: Isaac Boss
1: Michael Bent
2: Aaron Dundon
3: Martin Moore
4: Leo Cullen CAPTAIN
5: Tom Denton
6: Kevin McLaughlin
7: Shane Jennings
8: Jordi Murphy

REPLACEMENTS:
16: James Tracy
17: Jack O'Connell
18: Tadhg Furlong
19: Quinn Roux
20: Dominic Ryan
21: John Cooney
22: Jimmy Gopperth
23: Brendan Macken

Match stats

28 Played 28
11 Wins 16
61 Tries 82
37 Conversions 62
60 Penalties 72
5 Drop goals 2
574 Points 756
25 Average age 28

Cuthbert has been a much better player than I thought he'd be, I still think he's too slow for international rugby and is clearly behind Hogg, Tonks, Maitland etc. but will be a good player for Edinburgh for a long time as, with all due respect, he's unlikely to have many French and English players knocking on his door.

Great result. We are a different team from last season. Still work to be done in attack, but the defence has come on leaps and bounds.

Well done Edinburgh. Deserved that. Can't wait for the 1872

 Yeah 21st (slippy) how do you like them apples?

Great performance and cracking defence.

Du Preez was the best player by a mile but Tonks, Nel and Cuthbert stood out. Tonks has be kept at 10 and Cuthbert at 15.

It was actually the old guard making the mistakes, Laidlaw made a couple of great breaks but kicking 3 out on the full is pretty unforgivable. NDL had the touch of a r@pist and Ford muffed a few throws and seemed incapable of hooking the ball.

I'm really hopeful that this signals a turning point.

Has du preez ever played a match and not been motm?

Neither side were hooking the ball and no one was getting any clean ball from the scrums. A lot of that was probably the pitch though, once you had got a bit of solid ground underfoot you would dare not lift a foot and risk letting it go.

Generally though I would say the scrum situation is improving (Glasgow v Cardiff aside) and there seem to be a lot less resets than even at the beginning of the season. Maybe the new laws were just taking a while to bed in and the refs to get used to them!

Du Preez is too good for the northern hemisphere. Absolute class. Next best Edinburgh player for me was Cuthbert. He was so sound under the high balls that they seemed to stop after the first 20 minutes. On a night like tonight if there was any weakness shown then it was going to be a long night for a fullback.

He's a genuinely good full back... Tonight.

Regarding the scrums, I've not so many honest put ins for a long time.

The line outs, not so much. But that might have been the bluster.

Tell you what, that was actually a fairly entertaining game! I feared the worst when i saw the weather but it was a lot more entertaining than the dross served up at Scotstoun last week.

Shows how far we've come that I'm disappointed we let Leinster away with a LBP. We had so much of that match it really would have been a massive disappointment to lose.

As has been said Du Preez is just class - far too good for Edinburgh. Whoever appointed Solomons needs a lot of credit - Du Preez would have been no where near Edinburgh if it wasn't for him.

Also thought Nel had a very strong game, and the scrum was much improved on last week. Considering the pitch and weather the scrums in general were actually pretty good!

I'm finding it really hard not to get carried away with things just now, as I know how bad it has been in the past, but the last 2 weeks has given me a reason to dream and have optimism in the future.

If, and this is a big if, we manage to win the 1872 cup that really will set us up brilliantly for Perpignan. Win that and our season really will get interesting.

Edinburgh up to 6th in the table!   

Once again Solomons kept the subs on the bench. Fair play to him for not making subs for subs sake, but there is going to come a point soon when these players really are going to need a break. Dickinson, Nel, Gilchrist, Du Preesz and Tonks have played a lot of rugby this year and generally play 80 minutes every game.

Once again Nel played the whole 80, having played 70 last week and 80 every game before that. What has Cross done??

Very concerned about player fatigue over the next month or so, but let's hope Solomons knows what he's doing!

Edinburgh's season is already probably better than most fans would have hoped for back in August. There was little in the way of hope and expectation going on then. If you had offered a win against Leinster and Munster and to be still in with a shout in the HK, you would have bitten someone's hand off for that.

You can see the confidence and belief coming back into the team now, that and the addition of an exceptionally good back rower is all that is different from last year. Glasgow suddenly found their mojo around this time last year and went off on that fantastic run, once you have the belief then anything is possible. lets see if Edinburgh can maintain that belief and where it will take them this year.

Solomons most certainly has had bad experience in the past, bringing in subs that cost him wins.

What a player du Preez is, a much better player in almost every facet of the game than Josh Strauss, better fitness level too.

RDW_Scotland wrote:Edinburgh up to 6th in the table!   

Once again Solomons kept the subs on the bench.  Fair play to him for not making subs for subs sake, but there is going to come a point soon when these players really are going to need a break.  Dickinson, Nel, Gilchrist, Du Preesz and Tonks have played a lot of rugby this year and generally play 80 minutes every game.

Once again Nel played the whole 80, having played 70 last week and 80 every game before that. What has Cross done??

Very concerned about player fatigue over the next month or so, but let's hope Solomons knows what he's doing!

He is certainly not one for subbing for the sake of it. He is flogging them hard though and will have to give them a break sometime, look what a week off did for Laidlaw. I guess some of them will have the international window (Nel and du Prez, who is remarkable as he has already played the full Super season before he got here). You have got to feel for Cross though, he has always given his all when he has played and rarely puts in a bad shift.

Still he does look like a man who knows what he is doing and it does seem to be working!

There's a 3 week break during the 6N - perhaps he's hoping they can all last until then.

There's 10 days from the away leg of the 1872 and Perpignan, which will help a lot.

What is also pretty pleasing is the competition for places we now have in the back 5 of the pack. 2nd row especially - remember the days when the Edinburgh 2nd row was remarkably poor?? Gilchrist, VDV and Atkins are playing well and Cox is a very capable player at this level.

In the back row Leonardi has shown to be a good signing and Basalaia had a very strong start to the season before picking up an injury just before our good run of form started.

The backs are worryingly thin on the ground - that's definitely somewhere he will need to strengthen significantly in the summer.

Yeah that's good depth in the pack, apart in the props, still i would like to see more of Lewis Niven, he gave BJ Botha of Munster fits at the beginning of the season, i think he has good potential.

Solomons is a lot more consistent than Townsend in his selections and it's paying off.

I'd also like to commend the Leinster support. They were top notch. Good voice, good laugh and kind enough to give me a flag for my daughter. They're now my third team, just after after the great unwashed from the west.

Proper rugby croud that you can sit with and appreciate the good and the bad from both teams.

Edinburgh are unrecognizable from last season. Things seem to be clicking nicely for yas now.

Schedule isn't too bad actually - ten days after the game at Scotstoun we've got perpignan, 8 days after that is Munster, then there's 2 weeks off.

There's then a block of 4 games (3 away on the trot) then a 3 week break.

The non Scotland players will be fine. And let's face it, it's the non Scotland regulars that are doing well just now!

+1 on the Leinster fans, were great craic and seemed to really enjoy the game. Go to my fourth team behind Glasgow and Ulster, had some blasts with those guys in the past, particularly the semi final.

RDW just spotted your 4/1 shot came in. Good man.

So do you think this result will swell the travelling Edinburgh support to 5 or 6 on Ne'erday - just saying ! Mr Singh's might need to get some canapies into the Scout Hall

justified sinner wrote:RDW just spotted your 4/1 shot came in. Good man.

  

If only Laidlaw scored too - was shouting st the tv even more than normal when he made those breaks!

Superb win

I was impressed with Tonks at 10 last night, great kicking game and steady all round in defence and attack. I would think he's got a great chance of being the Scotland 10 in the 6N now if he outshines Weir and/or Jackson in the games against Glasgow, very interesting.
Good to see Solomon's approach to subbing, ie don't sub for the sake of it.

Munster, Glaws and now Leinster.  That's great form lads. Weegies (my 2nd team),  beware

Well deserved, intelligent win, for the atrocious conditions that were in it. Laidlaw ran the show.    

Believe.

Well I never - a win - and won well not hanging on at the end. There really was hope!

That's twice in two weeks Leinster have been on the opponents line in the last minute with a win within reach. And twice they've lost possession and the game. Not good.

Truth is Feckless, we shouldn't be in that position in the first place. O' Connor needs to sort it out.

You had half your team missing though Gib, no?

Still no excuse for the inept way we played Georgie. Madigan has lots to learn about game control in shoite conditions. Tonks and Laidlaw especially, showed how its done. That was the differ. That and a more experienced pack. Edinburgh just seem to believe in themselves under Solomons. He is giving them great direction and they are doing the simple things really well. Once you get those right, the rest will come.