Edinburgh v Southern Kings

First topic message reminder :

Head Coach Richard Cockerill has been boosted by the return of recent Scotland call-ups David Cherry, Luke Crosbie and Chris Dean ahead of tomorrow evening’s Guinness PRO14 encounter against Isuzu Southern Kings at Madibaz Stadium (Saturday 26 January kick-off 3.15pm GMT/ 5.15pm local time) – live on Premier Sports 2

The uncapped trio – who were released from Scotland camp earlier this week - are named in the starting line-up as the team selection includes nine changes to the side that secured an historic Heineken Champions Cup victory against Montpellier last Friday night.

Pierre Schoeman, Bill Mata, Henry Pyrgos, Jaco van der Walt, James Johnstone and Dean all retain their place in the starting XV as the capital side search for their second victory over their Conference B rivals this month.

Ahead of the fixture in Port Elizabeth, which sees Edinburgh make their first ever visit to the Madibaz Stadium, Cockerill said: “We’ve had a tough and intense week of training in Port Elizabeth and the boys are looking forward to going up against a combative Southern Kings side.

“The players should take credit for our good run of form, but we’ve got to back it up at the Madibaz Stadium tomorrow evening.

“We certainly won’t take our opponents lightly. We will need to be at the top of our game, both mentally and physically, if we are to secure all points on offer come full-time.”

Fullback Dougie Fife returns to action for the first time since being named as man of the match in the 38-0 victory over the Southern Kings three-weeks ago.

The Scotland international is joined in the back-three by Tom Brown and James Johnstone, with the latter switching to the wing after nailing down the number 13 jersey in recent weeks.

Dean is partnered in midfield by Fosroc Scottish Rugby Academy graduate, George Taylor, whilst an unchanged half-back paring sees Van der Walt once again link-up with experienced scrum-half, Pyrgos.

In the front-row, Schoeman packs down alongside hooker Cherry – who last week was one of 12 Edinburgh players named in Scotland’s Six Nations squad – and Italian international Pietro Ceccarelli.

Fraser McKenzie – who returned from injury to skipper the capital side to victory over Southern Kings three-weeks-ago – is once again named as captain and is partnered in the second-row by Callum Hunter-Hill.

Fijian international No.8, Mata – who this week was named as one of 15 nominees for EPCR European Player of the Year – anchors a back-row featuring Ally Miller and blindside flanker, Crosbie.



Edinburgh team to face Southern Kings at the Madibaz Stadium in the Guinness PRO14 on Saturday 26 January (kick-off 3.15pm GMT/ 5.15pm local time) – live on Premier Sports 2



15. Dougie Fife (119)



14. Tom Brown (116)

13. George Taylor (2)

12. Chris Dean (80)

11. James Johnstone (34)



10. Jaco van der Walt (31)

9. Henry Pyrgos (16)



1. Pierre Schoeman (14)

2. David Cherry (12)

3. Pietro Ceccarelli (6)

4. Fraser McKenzie (108) CAPTAIN

5. Callum Hunter-Hill (11)

6. Luke Crosbie (22)

7. Ally Miller (4)

8. Viliame Mata (52)



Replacements: 16. Ross Ford (190); 17. Darryl Marfo (11); 18. Murray McCallum (46) 19. Jamie Hodgson (4). 20. Mungo Mason (1) 21. Nathan Fowles (68) 22. Simon Hickey (14) 23. Juan Pablo Socino (13)



Unavailable due to injury: Rory Sutherland; Lewis Carmichael; John Barclay; Magnus Bradbury; Senitiki Nayalo; Hamish Watson; Matt Scott; Mark Bennett; Damien Hoyland

Unavailable due to international selection: Allan Dell; WP Nel; Simon Berghan; Stuart McInally; Grant Gilchrist; Ben Toolis; Jamie Ritchie; Darcy Graham; Blair Kinghorn

That was a forward pass.

Win the kick off but don't secure the ruck

What the actual hell

wow...

QUICK SOMEONE SEND ME TIGERTATTIE'S PHONE NUMBER!

Well the Kings were awful and so was the ref, but Edinburgh can only blame themselves, they had plenty of chances to win that game

OMG

Normally I defend refs but this is indefensible.  Should have been several Kings carded and the Edinburgh card whilst not wrong was harsh to say the best

The last kings try was phenomenal

Well both Scottish sides throw away a game down in South Africa.

That might count at the end of the season

bsando wrote:Hope Edinburgh don’t do a Glasgow

Take nothing away from the kings backs - they are good.  But OMG!

BigGee wrote:Well the Kings were awful and so was the ref, but Edinburgh can only blame themselves, they had plenty of chances to win that game

We were certainly awful, abd against the kings we should be taking the ref out of it. Dodgy decisions shouldn't decide a game like this.

Saying that,  it was the worst reffing performance of the modern era

When Edinburgh restarted long I thought to myself, "hmm is that the best idea? Giving the kings space to play when they have their tales up?.. "

Answer? No

It was awful from everyone involved in that game. Kings were shocking for most of the game and should have had an entire front row in the bin.

Mata probably had his worst game for us, decision making from the team was nonexistent, handling errors etc.

But the worst was the ref. I try not to be critical of referees, but he should be taken off reffing Pro game matches for a while. He's had one of the worst performances I've seen in a long time.

Miserable performance. Awful Ref.

We need another game against Glasgow.

funnyExiledScot wrote:Miserable performance. Awful Ref.

We need another game against Glasgow.

At least we can play badly and still win!

bsando wrote:

bsando wrote:Hope Edinburgh don’t do a Glasgow

Not many teams going to beat both Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Keeps Edinburgh grounded

So the Edinburgh B team have now lost to Zebre, Dragons and Kings, the worst 3 teams in the league based on league points. Winning those 3 games is probably going to be the difference between a home playoff and not qualifying for next season's Champions Cup.

Just not good enough - starting to understand why Cockers never plays them!

funnyExiledScot wrote:Miserable performance. Awful Ref.

We need another game against Glasgow.

Who was the ref?

LondonTiger wrote:

funnyExiledScot wrote:Miserable performance. Awful Ref.

We need another game against Glasgow.

Who was the ref?

Welsh bloke, Daniel Jones.

Nope never heard of him either! Cant imagine we'll be seeing him again anytime soon...

RDW wrote:

LondonTiger wrote:

funnyExiledScot wrote:Miserable performance. Awful Ref.

We need another game against Glasgow.

Who was the ref?

Welsh bloke, Daniel Jones.

Nope never heard of him either! Cant imagine we'll be seeing him again anytime soon...

I think he was born in Ireland....

RDW wrote:So the Edinburgh B team have now lost to Zebre, Dragons and Kings, the worst 3 teams in the league based on league points. Winning those 3 games is probably going to be the difference between a home playoff and not qualifying for next season's Champions Cup.

Just not good enough - starting to understand why Cockers never plays them!

That's crazy, those wins would have them comfortably in Second place.

Edinburgh Rugby helping the little teams, beating the big boys.

RDW wrote:So the Edinburgh B team have now lost to Zebre, Dragons and Kings, the worst 3 teams in the league based on league points. Winning those 3 games is probably going to be the difference between a home playoff and not qualifying for next season's Champions Cup.

Just not good enough - starting to understand why Cockers never plays them!

Or they are bad because they aren't given enough game time.. It is anyone guess why the Italian prop started ahead of McCallum..

Edinburgh are considerably weaker without VdM 2.0

VinceWLB wrote:

RDW wrote:So the Edinburgh B team have now lost to Zebre, Dragons and Kings, the worst 3 teams in the league based on league points. Winning those 3 games is probably going to be the difference between a home playoff and not qualifying for next season's Champions Cup.

Just not good enough - starting to understand why Cockers never plays them!

Or they are bad because they aren't given enough game time.. It is anyone guess why the Italian prop started ahead of McCallum..

Edinburgh are considerably weaker without VdM 2.0

To be fair he did annihilate their scrum!

Sooooooo

Hiya

WTF!!!

Yeah

How can we go from humping Glasgow, besting a giant of french rugby to losing to the whipping boys of the pro 14?

Yes the red was shocking but both teams had to adapt to his pi$h and we didn’t. Cockers is going to kick a few bottoms at the next training session.

RDW wrote:
To be fair he did annihilate their scrum!

Schoeman was destroying their TH. With McCallum would probably have been even greater domination and he is better in the loose.

http://edinburghrugby.org/match-report/southern-kings-vs-edinburgh-rugby-sat-26012019-1715

Cockers was pretty reserved!

Damn that lasy try by the Kings was amazing!

Meli Rokoua Certainly looks some player.

tigertattie wrote:Sooooooo

Yes the red was shocking but both teams had to adapt to his pi$h and we didn’t. Cockers is going to kick a few bottoms at the next training session.

Not sure Edinburgh needed to adapt, we were destroying them in the scrum, whilst it wasn't producing anything due to incompetent handling etc after the ball went out, we weren't falling fowl of the ref.  So I don't think we needed to adapt to him, but purely learn to play a bit.

However, I'll stand by that was the worst performance from a ref I have ever seen.  Not least that he seemed totally determined to keep his cards in his pocket, apart from the seemingly perfectly legal challenge JJ made (I've not watched it back, so happy to be challenged on that, but from first viewing it seemed like he did nothing wrong)

Edinburgh were poor, there was some bizarre decisions, terrible handling a seemingly total lack of cohesion.  It looked like the players had bought into their hype and when they weren't instantly winning they seemed to force everything.  Yes the ref was poor, but Edinburgh were their own worst enemies.  There were times the Kings had all been sucked into play and instead of getting the ball out wide and exploiting the spaces, we just kept ploughing into practically their entire team.

Oh and speaking of which, what the hell was the ref pointing at with the Edinburgh non try!  Sorry but he was a total joke, and as I've already said he needs to be going back to local games for a few weeks/months to get more experience before he's let back into the professional environment.

One other thing I learned from that game was Edinburgh lack leadership when Rambo isn't playing.  I don't recall seeing McKenzie talking to the ref much during the endless resets at the scrum.  He should have been pointing out the fault rather than just going through scrum after scrum.  I'm definitely not saying it should be like football where the players crowd round the ref, but the captain is allowed to speak to him and McKenzie just didn't seem to be.

Ross Ford definitely added a bit of leadership once he came on, he was chatting to the ref frequently.

The game was Edinburgh’s for the taking but once they gained control of the match they totally switched off. It was a freakish final 5 minutes but that’s when the best teams initiate game control. Considering how badly Kings were enfringing perhaps it may have been more sensible to hold onto the ball and hope for a penalty in front of the posts.

In a way it was great learning experience for some of the younger guys coming through, ie, how not to totally mess up a final 10 mins of a match.

bsando wrote:Ross Ford definitely added a bit of leadership once he came on, he was chatting to the ref frequently.

The game was Edinburgh’s for the taking but once they gained control of the match they totally switched off. It was a freakish final 5 minutes but that’s when the best teams initiate game control. Considering how badly Kings were enfringing perhaps it may have been more sensible to hold onto the ball and hope for a penalty in front of the posts.

In a way it was great learning experience for some of the younger guys coming through, ie, how not to totally mess up a final 10 mins of a match.

Can't say I saw Ford doing much talking to the ref, but the commentators were loving him. I had to assume they hadn't seen him play in a long time.

I think after Ford's try, the players decided to go for a BP win and were maybe a bit careless in their play. Not that they had been the pinnacle of clinical play before that.

Perhaps there was a bit of naivety in that you’ve got to win the game first. Edinburgh and Glasgow won’t be the last teams to go down there expecting to win with ease and get blown away and find themselves chasing the game in the last few minutes.

They’ll be better for it I’m sure, though Cockers might make them walk back from South Africa...