Pro12: Edinburgh Rugby vs Ospreys - 3rd March

Form:

Edinburgh
Terrible.

Ospreys
Off the top of my head not sure, but they beat Glasgow last time out, so probably better than Edinburgh

Teams:

Edinburgh
15. Blair Kinghorn
14. Damien Hoyland
13. Glenn Bryce
12. Chris Dean
11. Rory Scholes

10. Duncan Weir
9. Sam Hidalgo-Clyne

1. Alasdair Dickinson
2. Neil Cochrane CAPTAIN
3. Murray McCallum
4. Grant Gilchrist
5. Ben Toolis
6. Magnus Bradbury
7. Jamie Ritchie
8. Cornell Du Preez



Replacements

16. Stuart McInally
17. Derrick Appiah
18. Kevin Bryce
19. Anton Bresler
20. Lewis Carmichael
21. Nathan Fowles
22. Junior Rasolea
23. Michael Allen

Players unavailable due to injury: Nick Beavon (neck), Phil Burleigh (hand), Jack Cosgrove (ankle), Viliami Fihaki (hand), John Hardie (knee), Will Helu (hand), Viliame Mata (knee), Nasi Manu (shoulder), Fraser McKenzie (back), WP Nel (neck), Alex Northam (Achilles), Rory Sutherland (groin), Jason Tovey (shoulder), Kyle Whyte (knee)

Ospreys:
Dan Evans; Keelan Giles, Kieron Fonotia, Josh Matavesi. Dafydd Howells; Sam Davies, Tom Habberfield (capt); Nicky Smith, Sam Parry, Brian Mujati, Tyler Ardron, Rory Thornton, Olly Cracknell, Sam Underhill, James King.

Replacements: Hugh Gustafson, Paul James, Rhodri Jones, Joe Bearman, Dan Baker, Brendon Leonard, Jonathan Spratt, Jay Baker.

Refs etc:

Referee: George Clancy (Ireland)

Assistant referees: David Wilkinson (Ireland), Bob Nevins (Scotland)

Citing commissioner: Paul Minto (Scotland)

TMO: Kevin Beggs (Ireland)

I'm going to Myerside tonight, so will be interesting to see attendance numbers, now the matches don't coincide with an international from the visiting team.

I suspect not well.  Certainly based on performances recently in the last few years, it's not going to pull in the crowds.

Given Ospreys seem to be semi competent* and Edinburgh are currently the rugby equivalent of Donald Trump's reign thus far as president, I fully expect the Welsh team to come away with a TBP win.

It's safe to say I'm pretty bored of Edinburgh these days.  Next season/death (whatever comes first) can't come soon enough.

*no offense Ospreys fans, I'm sure your team is better than semi competent, but you don't need to be any better than that to beat Edinburgh at the moment.

As if our mood couldn't get any worse George Clancy is reffing.

I think at the moment it doesn't matter, Edinburgh will manage to lose whoever is the ref.  At least with Clancy we might get to claim a morale victory due to his decisions, but deep down, we'll know the truth.

I'm keen to see Kinghorn have a good game - in the first half of the season he had some barnstorming games with some real eye catching performances. Since New Year he has been pretty rotten - like most of the team. He's had little joy in attack and his kicking game has been a major contributer to our downfall in some games as he has a big boot but very little control. Also I know it is hard for 15s to tackle in open play but he has looked Pre-Wales Visser-esque at times, especially against Ulster.

Earlier in the season his form warranted his name being included in Scotland squads but his form is way off that now.

I guess with regards to Kinghorn, he's still very young and this is his first (second?) season.

I agree that his form has dipped in recent weeks though. Hopefully it's a temporary thing.

Really hope Dickinson comes through the match injury free and plays well, would be nice to at least have one of our many injured props back.

Also, Gilchrist: He's still club captain right? Yet he's starting the game and Cochrane has retained the captaincy. What is going on with him just now, he went from being captain of club & country, to barely getting into a woeful Edinburgh side.

Something must be very wrong at the club given how so many players are just off form or looking a shadow of their former selves.

The official line is that it is because he has been away with Scotland a lot so they wanted to start the players that had been full time training with Scotland, but if he's meant to be club captain then he should be captaining the team when he plays.

I suspect he's off at the end of the season and there may have been a bust up a long the way. That last part is purely speculation!

I agree if he's club captain then it's odd he's not captaining the team. Also the official line sounds nonsense seeing how he's been with the club a fair bit, coming off the bench last week for example.

I wonder who would take him though, there was speculation he was off to Toulon prior to his last injury and recent form, but I can't imagine they are still interested (if they ever were) based on how he's been playing (or not) recently. Maybe if teams ignore his recent form and just focus on how he can play rather than is playing.

EWT Spoons wrote:I agree if he's club captain then it's odd he's not captaining the team.  Also the official line sounds nonsense seeing how he's been with the club a fair bit, coming off the bench last week for example.

I wonder who would take him though, there was speculation he was off to Toulon prior to his last injury and recent form, but I can't imagine they are still interested (if they ever were) based on how he's been playing (or not) recently.  Maybe if teams ignore his recent form and just focus on how he can play rather than is playing.

What was even more strange was that Charmichael - an academy player - came on before him into the 2nd row when McKenzie came off. Gilchrist only came on when another forward went off for an HIA and never came back on again after that player returned.

He's out of contract in the summer isn't he? I guess with or without a club to move to he'll be gone. Which I guess is a shame, as Cockerill could probably get him back to something approaching his best.

I think he needs to move on.  I'd rather keep Bresler and develop Charmichael.  Both combined are probably on less than Gilchrist too!

Mckenzie,
Toolis
Bresler
Charmichael
Academy player

Would have a good balance to it.

Minging weather

Davies just fooled the hooker before setting up Josh for a try 3-10 in horrendous weather

Sam Davies is bossing this game

Edinburgh struggling to get out their half

How was that lineout bit called Squint?? Do the TJs actually do anything??

Waste from Edinburgh - Hoyland should have slid in from 10m out!

That's why the Edinburgh winger isn't in an international setup, should have finished that move off with that much space

Good lord that was an awful 40 mins of rugby

Edinburgh's handling is terrible.

Only decent bit if the game was Davies' neat bit of play.

tigertattie wrote:Good lord that was an awful 40 mins of rugby

Edinburgh's handling is terrible.

Only decent bit if the game was Davies' neat bit of play.

To be fair in this weather, it is amazing that both sides are hanging onto the ball as much as they are!

Lots of territory for Edinburgh this half - need to get some points for all the effort though

Dickinson is crocked, stretcher on for him

Looks in a lot of pain

Well Dicko not going to be playing next weekend then!

It really has not been his year. Might as well give us now and try again next season.

Baws

Ach. That doesn't look good for dicko

10 minutes camped in their 22 and nothing to show for it

Gaaah so many mistakes in their 22!

This is destined to finish 10-3

RDW_Scotland wrote:Gaaah so many mistakes in their 22!

This is destined to finish 10-3

Let's hope so

Bradbury injured as well. Not getting any easier for Edinburgh and Scotland reserve options

Ben Toolis had been superb again - utterly tireless

Great kick on those conditions

Another good kick

Dammit.

I know the weather is awful but the continual knock ons in their 22 has killed us

Congratulations to Edinburgh for spending 40 minutes in Osprey's half and conspiring to lose the game.

Suppose a knock on in their 22 is a fitting way to end the game.

Huge amount of effort went into that but we just lacked a bit of spark to make a breakthrough. We certainly had plenty possession and territory.

Great defence from ospreys.

Yeah the weather is rotten but that was awful.

Another excellent loss by Edinburgh. No doubt there will still be plenty of muppets on Facebook asking why we're bringing in a top coach like Cockers when we could've given Hodge the top job full time.

It was just predictable though. Pick and go. Pick and go. Through the hands left. Though the hands right.

Not a single change of angle all game. Edinburgh basically playing like a school side that's just been set up

I actually thought that Edinburgh did a lot better tonight than recently. They really looked like they wanted to play tonight, unlike a few of the other games recently and there were a few decent individual performances from Toolis, Weir and a few others.

Don't forget that the Ospreys are top of the league, they had one decent chance the whole match and took it. So much of that comes down to confidence and Edinburgh unfortunately don't have any at the moment. If they keep playing like that though, something will eventually come.

Phew,Edinburgh must wonder how they lost that.Just pleased to win.Thought Toolis and Gilchrist were outstanding.Our man Brad is some defence coach.Bit concerned we were overpowered by the E pack but Rory T did his best and we are very lightweight without AWJ,Beard and B3D.One piece of sublime skill from Sam D and if he'd been playing for E we'd have lost bigly.But a win in those conditions has to be applauded,so well done boys.

God that was hard, absolutely tremendous defence performance won us that game, and one piece of magic, we'll look back in May and say it was that game that got us to this final.

BigGee wrote:I actually thought that Edinburgh did a lot better tonight than recently. They really looked like they wanted to play tonight, unlike a few of the other games recently and there were a few decent individual performances from Toolis, Weir and a few others.

Don't forget that the Ospreys are top of the league, they had one decent chance the whole match and took it. So much of that comes down to confidence and Edinburgh unfortunately don't have any at the moment. If they keep playing like that though, something will eventually come.

I'm with you on this - given the conditions we were 90% there in our performance we were just missing that last 10%.

There was no invention or plan of how to break them down and the outstanding O's defence just lapped it up.

Some big displays in the forwards - they really could have done with an X-factor back (like Davis) to make the one breakthrough that was needed.

BigGee wrote:

tigertattie wrote:Good lord that was an awful 40 mins of rugby

Edinburgh's handling is terrible.

Only decent bit if the game was Davies' neat bit of play.

To be fair in this weather, it is amazing that both sides are hanging onto the ball as much as they are!

In that weather you just have to be glad no one drowned or got washed away.