HK round 3 - Racing Metro V Edinburgh

First topic message reminder :

Saturday 8th December 2012, KO 20:00 UK time
Stade Olympique Yves du Manoir, Paris
Referee: Peter Fitzgibbon

Teams:
[posted here when announced]

HC Form:
Edinburgh
Don't ask.

Racing Metro

20/10/12 Saracens 30 - 13 Racing Métro
13/10/12 Racing Métro 22 - 17 Munster
22/1/12 C Blues 36 - 30 Racing

Waffle:

So unfortunately for us Edinburgh fans we're back to the Heineken cup! After such a positive year last year Edinburgh have been ridiculously bad this year. Off the boil, not at the races, pure mince, baws - whatever words you want to use, the bottom line is Edinburgh have been terrible.

Racing on the other hand have had a mixed start - good win at home over Munster but loss away to Sarries. I was kind of hoping they would have lost 2 from 2 by now so they would lose interest, but unfortunately not.

I genuinely have no idea how Edinburgh will do, but I think we will lose. Worryingly we were bullied a bit by a significantly weakened Connacht pack, so am concerned what will happen again the beasts of Racing!

So i'm holding out for a losing BP, but in all honesty would settle for some points scored!

prediction - RM 27, Edinburgh 10

Mince

good steal there

I just don't understand how Scottish teams can go from being notoriously difficult to break down to complete lackluster in the tackle area! tackling high and bouncing off runners - what is wrong with these guys?!

but on the plus side we've scored our first points of the heinekin cup season...

Tim Visser's "tackle" there was appauling! Go's high and gets fended off!

good take by Brown!

Contender for take of the season.

I hope Laidlaws missed kicks arent going to haunt us.

Tramptastic wrote:I just don't understand how Scottish teams can go from being notoriously difficult to break down to complete lackluster in the tackle area! tackling high and bouncing off runners - what is wrong with these guys?!

McGinty the defence coach is rubbish. We should get rid of him.

Crumbling setpiece making it difficult to get out of our own half, so were resorting to miracle running from deep. We are going to get punished sooner or later for it.

Imhoff probably as amazed as everyone else at how far he managed to run from his own goal area there.

bit better from Edinburgh - look at least to be vaguely intersted

Tonks really is our signing of the season.

and Rees is one of the worst. Quick and nippy, but his passings guff and he cocks up so many attacking positions

Laidlaw to SH. interesting. oh and a amatuer knock on at the lineout.

Fords been dropped by scotland, just drop him from edinburgh to. You cannot have a hooker who consistently mis-throws when in the opposition 22.

On the plus, our defence actually looks like it can weather an attack in our 22. Something I havent been able to say for a couple of seasons.

jinxed it

Tom Brown being strechered off. Looks like his knees been gammied by a massive low hit.

WIth Laidlaw at SH all of a sudden were getting this magical thing known as quick ball

Visser looks lazy tonight. Hes barely got his knees dirty. Hes got to go back to looking for work if its not coming his way

I thought he did OK in that respect - poipping up in different places nd running support lines. Not back to his best tho for sure. the whole team just about seem to lack zest - confidence?

Imperialbigdave wrote:WIth Laidlaw at SH all of a sudden were getting this magical thing known as quick ball

But funny, he never did anything of note with it !

Another Heineken cup loss for Edinburgh, going down 19-9

Not happy with the 9/10 positions in Edinburgh at the moment. Something isn't clicking. I really can't figure it out, what are Edinburgh doing so wrong this year that they didn't do last year? Was Blair really that much better than Reese? We didn't seem dangerous at all tonight, not once did I feel we were close to scoring.

bsando wrote:Not happy with the 9/10 positions in Edinburgh at the moment. Something isn't clicking. I really can't figure it out, what are Edinburgh doing so wrong this year that they didn't do last year? Was Blair really that much better than Reese? We didn't seem dangerous at all tonight, not once did I feel we were close to scoring.

Not even with Laidlaw at 9, and Francis at 10 !

bsando wrote:Not happy with the 9/10 positions in Edinburgh at the moment. Something isn't clicking. I really can't figure it out, what are Edinburgh doing so wrong this year that they didn't do last year? Was Blair really that much better than Reese? We didn't seem dangerous at all tonight, not once did I feel we were close to scoring.

Some decent forwards, and some decent ball from lineouts and scrums would be a start !

The form Scottish halfback partnership of this weekend was Heathcote and McMillan by a wide margin.

Glad to see Greeg back at 9, we looked much sharper after that. Now all we need is a 10, not sure the new guy is the answer. Hunter might be if he's played.

Where was Visser??? how a player of his calibre is never used in the 10-12 channel is beyond me. On the rare occasion he looked dangerous he decided to take a gamble and kicked it... Is he that afraid of contact?

I have seen players slowing down before hitting rucks.
Gilchrist and Denton looked good though.
Rees is to slow arounds rucks and his box kick not precise enough.

I hope one of Talei or Basilaia will be back for next week, also i would like to see Gilchrist and VdW in the 2nd row, that could be the best combination, Parker on the bench and give Cox a rest.

Laidlaw missed 12 points from penalties, Ford throwing in at lineouts, is an utter disgrace for an international player and Visser looked headless and clueless.
Main reasons Edinburgh lost again !

Just back from the stadium and the first thing to say is that stadium is exactly what we need! Nice size, good set up etc. Would be perfect on the back pitches.

2nd thing - Fitzgibbon is a douche. Cab someone clarify - just before their last 3 points there was a big debate over whether they had kicked the ball out on the full - had they? To us the scrum was outside the 22, they kicked it out - our lineout in their 22! Instesd we had one in our own half, gave away a penalty and we lost the lbp!

Anyway it was a tough game tonight - very difficult on a tiny pitch against a big physical team, no space! We got on it at the end - pretty sure it was smaller than my local club pitch.

We were pretty toothless in attack but as I said there was hardly any space. Will hopefully e better next week, although our wide defence is shocking! In the first half their 14 made so much ground even though we had plenty numbers out wide.

Anyway on the plus side gilchrist and Denton carried hard and Francis looked promising when he came on. Laidlaw also did well when he moved to 9. Laidlaw-Francis next week? Why not.

Final point - still yet to se what Edinburgh's game plan is this year. Last year it was plain to see - this year everyone is doing things on their own with no cohesion.

Must do better.

RDW_Scotland wrote:
2nd thing - Fitzgibbon is a douche. Cab someone clarify - just before their last 3 points there was a big debate over whether they had kicked the ball out on the full - had they? To us the scrum was outside the 22, they kicked it out - our lineout in their 22! Instesd we had one in our own half, gave away a penalty and we lost the lbp!

Middle of the scrum was exactly on the 22. I don't know how it can be interpreted if it was brought in or not.

Fair enough. Still, we were at fault for poor rucking and losing the penalty - irrespective of the decision

The lineout was a shambles again, though not entirely due to ford for once. Numerous times, the lock took the ball cleanly in the air only to hurl it at the ground with enough force to wipe out the dinosaurs. Rees inevitably couldnt catch it and the result was either the entire team on the backfoot, or an opposition throw.

And Visser. I always used to think he had a high workrate, but most of this season he just hangs about not really doing much. In the first half I saw Tom Brown make more tackles on Vissers wing than Visser himself. I appreciate he looks for players making breaks to support which wasnt really happening tonight, but sometimes games go like that and you have to take the initiative and try and make the breaks yourself. But tonight, when he did offer himself, he just minced his way into contact with the power of a 10 year old girl.

I thought Laidlaw brought a lot more speed and accuracy to our game when he moved to scrum-half. Had we had that kind of quick service from the start, things could well have been different.

Mcinally, Denton, Gilchrist and Grant had good games in the forwards, and Tonks did well considering the pressure he was being put under by the team. De Luca tried to put people in space, but no one was having any of it.

VinceWLB wrote:Where was Visser??? how a player of his calibre is never used in the 10-12 channel is beyond me. On the rare occasion he looked dangerous he decided to take a gamble and kicked it... Is he that afraid of contact?

I think I heard him approach a tackler and shout 'not on the the money maker!'

Not a great outcome but by all accounts a marginal improvement on the prior HC disasters this season.

No doubt wholesale squad rotation for Friday will ensure that any lessons learned can swiftly be forgotten.

Disappointing to hear that Visser's form is collapsing - he was so good at the start of the season. It'll take some cohones to drop him, but Fife has looked very good when given a chance this season.

I'm not overly concerned about Visser yet - I can't emphasise enough how small the pitch was and there was hardly any space at all for our wingers due to their good defence.

I agree he needed to up his workrate, but that is hopefully an easy fix.

Worried about our wide defence though - ours was terrible on a small pitch, never mind the wide Murrayfield!

RDW_Scotland wrote:Worried about our wide defence though - ours was terrible on a small pitch, never mind the wide Murrayfield!

Lee Jones to the rescue