Pro12: Edinburgh Rugby V Newport Gwent Dragons - 11th Oct

First topic message reminder :


Referee: Peter Fitzgibbon (IRFU, 60th competition game)
Assistant Referees: David Changleng, Bob Nevins (both SRU)
Citing Commissioner: Douglas Hunter (SRU)
TMO: Iain Ramage (SRU)



Edinburgh    
Last 3 Matches
Date
Home Away
3/10/14 Ulster 30 - 0 Edinburgh
26/9/14 Edinburgh 20 - 20 Scarlets
21/9/14 Ospreys 62 - 13 Edinburgh

Dragons
Last 3 Matches
Date
Home Away
5/10/14 Scarlets 26 - 13 Dragons
28/9/14 Dragons 33 - 15 Treviso
20/9/14 Dragons 13 - 33 Glasgow

Teams:

Edinburgh

15 Greig TONKS
14 Dougie FIFE
13 Sam BEARD
12 Andries STRAUSS
11 Tim VISSER
10 Tom HEATHCOTE
9 Sean KENNEDY

1 Alasdair DICKINSON
2 Ross FORD
3 John ANDRESS
4 Anton BRESLER
5 Grant GILCHRIST
6 Mike COMAN (Cptn)
7 Hamish WATSON
8 Cornell DU PREEZ
Substitutes

16 James HILTERBRAND
17 Allan DELL
18 Willem NEL
19 Ollie ATKINS
20 Tomas LEONARDI
21 Sam HIDALGO-CLYNE
22 Phil BURLEIGH
23 Jack CUTHBERT

Well its nice to get a win. Hamish Watson outstanding, Visser looked hungry and made some try scoring opportunities but Edinburgh failed to capitalise. Far too much poor kicking simply handing them the ball. Kick chase and defensive line speed a bit better. Hopefully a confidence builder for next week

Well done, a win is a win. I wonder who is more relieved Solomans or Bru (and his stones)?

A good summary, llama. But let's be honest, that first half performance would have seen us pumped by better teams than the Dragons.
Big positive was Hamish Watson.
Negatives include the penalty count and John Andries getting his backside handed to him to a plate.

Kennedy's box kicking was poor throughout, a team with a more potent back three would've punished us for handing them that much ball. There is a very big difference between a well executed box kick as a tactical option and just hoofing the ball down the fullback/wingers throat with no chance of an effective chase. It something we really need to fix, quickly

TheMildlyFranticLlama wrote:Thoroughly deserved MoM for Watson, very good game

That's his second MoM award this season. Playing for Edinburgh. Me likey.

The annoying thing, though, llama a is that it is easily fixed i.e take a club with more loft and leave it in the air for longer.
It's not as if box kicking depends on the opposition.

Watson needs to work a bit on his defense but he looks great, deserved motm.

I know they are hit badly by injuries but the Dragons were possibly the worst i have ever seen them.

Great to hear we got the win, huge blow losing Du preez.

No surprise to hear Kennedy's box kicks were bad - tfeyve been bad all season.

How was Strauss?

Watson was superb, and I thought Sam Beard was also excellent. It was probably Coman and Strauss' best games in an Edinburgh jersey. A couple of big hits from Strauss plus it was a nice pass to put Fife away for his try.

Visser should have scored another, bad individual error after great work from Watson, and Andress and Nel both struggled with the Gibbon.

I thought Kennedy was pretty poor, but as has been said a million times, we play to his weaknesses and not his strengths. When he did get ball in hand looking to break he was sharp. Good performance from Heathcote as well.

Overall it wasn't vintage, and the Dragons were really poor, but we won and were clearly the better side. That in itself is a step forward, despite the nasty injury to Du Preez.

Small steps, small steps. I just watched the game and that was much better from Edinburgh, especially the second half. They had their chance to let the heads go down when Dragons scored well against the run of play but did not and won comfortably in the end. If they were a team full of confidence that would have been a five pointer, they left 3 tries out there. At the moment though, I don't think that is important, they just need to take the win and try and build on it.

There were some decent performances as well. Watson has been mentioned rightly by everyone but I thought Heathcote was next in line for MoM. He looks to be nailing down the 10 shirt with a radar kicking boot of the tee and a nice line in attacking flair when he gets some ball. The backline was certainly moving much better today than we have seen all season. Tonks I am afraid is going to be competing for the 15 shirt for Scotland. I would have him behind Hogg and ahead of Murchie.

Yes there was still some pretty poor box kicking, especially from Kennedy. I just think he does not get the ball away quickly enough either and would like to see S H-C get a bit of a run in the team , particularly when the pack are not getting murdered, to see what he can do.

Du Preez is a big loose though and he will certainly be out for a while, the first bad injury of the year, we await the prognosis with interest. Leonardi played well though and hopefully Dents is not to far away. We might get a few glimpses of Ritchie now as well.

Maybe, just maybe, Strauss and Conman are slightly better players than we have been giving them credit for as well!

It's funny how you see different things. I wasn't impressed by Heathcote, Gee. His place kicking was good but his defence looks poor. Was he not "doing a Dan Parks " for the Dragons try?
I am afraid that the great unwashed yes-voters have at least 2 possibly 3 stand offs ahead of Heathcote when it comes to the AIs.

Ugh, where to start?

Post-match interview, and Lee Byrne says some of the stupidest things I've heard in a long time: first, that it was "a game we should have won" - well it would have helped if we'd played better than Edinburgh at any point - and second, that the team were "pleased" and "comfortable" going in 6 - 0 down at half time. How about bl0ody lucky to be going in only 6 - 0 down?

Every week we hear that we need to work on our exit strategy; every week we kick poorly and infield and the ball just comes straight back at us. I lost count of the number of times I punched the sofa (the dog was lucky she was on the other one).

It's true that we've had some sh!te luck with injuries, but the coaches haven't helped themselves either. We went into this match with just two fit centres on our books, and what do we do? We release one of them to play for Cross Keys. What sort of idiocy is that?

There were positives: our scramble defence is good (it needs to be); our set-piece is an improvement on last season; on the rare occasions when we got into Edinburgh's 22 and kept ball in hand, we looked half-threatening. But it's just so depressing to be praying for the Blues to lose again just so we can stay above them. That's such a lousy ambition.

Well in other news, I was out for dinner last night and a few Edinburgh guys were there. A few things:

Kennedy was limping quite badly - did he get injured?

Grant Gilchrist is feckin massive. As in, he really shouldn't be indoors because he just takes up too much room.

My view on the Dragons is that they looked like a Baa Baas side. Some good individual players like Tovey, Byrne, O'Brien and Brew but no cohesion. Everyone seemed to be playing from a different script, so players kept getting isolated.

On Strauss, it hasn't so much been about him being rubbish, more that he's just so average. Yesterday was the best I've seen from him. Some good hits in defence and his pass to Fife was well executed (although frankly you'd expect a pro player to make it).

RDW_Scotland wrote:Well in other news, I was out for dinner last night and a few Edinburgh guys were there. A few things:

Kennedy was limping quite badly - did he get injured?

Grant Gilchrist is feckin massive. As in, he really shouldn't be indoors because he just takes up too much room.

Kennedy probably got beats after the game for those dreadful box kicks!

I've been disappointed with Kennedy this season - he promised a lot but I wouldn't have him in front of Sam Clyne at the moment, never mind the likes of Cusiter, Pyrgos or Laidlaw for Scotland.

Shocking result and performance from a Dragons view point, we always get our hopes built up at the beginning of each season, this one more than others for me but once again we are left floundering with our season nearly over already.

Just saw the attendance was 3100 - that's the lowest it has been for a while.

Grim.

RDW_Scotland wrote:Well in other news, I was out for dinner last night and a few Edinburgh guys were there. A few things:

Kennedy was limping quite badly - did he get injured?

Grant Gilchrist is feckin massive. As in, he really shouldn't be indoors because he just takes up too much room.

Gilchrist had a very good game as well. I am not sure how big Gray is playing, but from what I have seen GG and Johnny should be packing down for Scotland in the AI's. Two young athletic second rows in the modern mould who should both end up with an awful lot of caps.

RDW_Scotland wrote:Well in other news, I was out for dinner last night and a few Edinburgh guys were there. A few things:

Kennedy was limping quite badly - did he get injured?

Grant Gilchrist is feckin massive. As in, he really shouldn't be indoors because he just takes up too much room.

You took Mrs W out for a meal - and to the same restaurant as Edinburgh players go to? I am prett sure that their health and nutrition coaches will tell them not to go to the KFC again.
Kennedy's limp will be caused by kicking the arse off the ball far too often and with far too much venom. He out kicked his chasers by miles

InjuredYetAgain wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:Well in other news, I was out for dinner last night and a few Edinburgh guys were there. A few things:

Kennedy was limping quite badly - did he get injured?

Grant Gilchrist is feckin massive. As in, he really shouldn't be indoors because he just takes up too much room.

You took Mrs W out for a meal - and to the same restaurant as Edinburgh players go to? I am prett sure that their health and nutrition coaches will tell them not to go to the KFC again.
Kennedy's limp will be caused by kicking the arse off the ball far too often and with far too much venom. He out kicked his chasers by miles

I think you'll find I'm a (relatively) young professional of (questionable) social standing!

Just a shame the profession in question is civil engineering and we get paid bugger all...

RDW_Scotland wrote:Just saw the attendance was 3100 - that's the lowest it has been for a while.

Grim.

3156 actually. Don't forget the extra 56 included Edinburgh's great match winning lucky charm, yours truly!

And the 30 policeman who attend every game just to check for Schiz throwing empty bottles of Buckfast at Alan Solomons.

The security at Murrayfield is actually a joke. There's probably at least 130 private security plus police. I've worked in events and that's excessive.

Nematode wrote:The security at Murrayfield is actually a joke. There's probably at least 130 private security plus police. I've worked in events and that's excessive.

I presume that their job is to shush people who are even contemplating cheering (perhaps at Ross Ford attempting to hook) with the line "sssssh, some people are trying to read/pray in here".

It's probably too early to say, but what do people think about Hamish Watson's chances for the future? In the (limited) games I've seen, he's been very mobile, athletic and carried too. He reminds me a little of Hooper.

The 7 jersey is quite bare at the moment. I'm not utterly convinced by Fusaro and Brown & Barclay seem to be pushing on a bit. Ross Rennie is in the SRU wilderness and Tyrone Holmes is hardly cut out for Glasgow tbh.

*ER stats put him down at 101kg

Just been on the ER website and what's happened to these backs?

Nikki Walker
Brett Thompson
Michael Tait
Damien Hoyland
Tom Brown

Nematode wrote:It's probably too early to say, but what do people think about Hamish Watson's chances for the future? In the (limited) games I've seen, he's been very mobile, athletic and carried too. He reminds me a little of Hooper.

The 7 jersey is quite bare at the moment. I'm not utterly convinced by Fusaro and Brown & Barclay seem to be pushing on a bit. Ross Rennie is in the SRU wilderness and Tyrone Holmes is hardly cut out for Glasgow tbh.

*ER stats put him down at 101kg

I think that the jersey is Blair Cowan's to lose at the moment, to be honest. I am also worried about how badly John Barclay has faded from the scene (playing behind a more dominant pack would help him, of course) and like it or not, Rennie committed career suicide by deciding to put himself at risk of playing Championship rugby.

As a footnote, if I was Will Bordill or Tommy Spinks training week in and out with the Glasgow Warrior team and seeing colleagues age group colleagues like Gray, Fagerson and Allan getting game time, I would look at Fozzy and Sherlock and think "I could bloody do THAT".

Denton was chatting after the game and said he's due back in a couple of weeks. He's back in full training now.

EWT Spoons wrote:Denton was chatting after the game and said he's due back in a couple of weeks. He's back in full training now.

Did you warn him that getting back into full contact training increases the risk of one's hair becoming wildly unmanageable?

No, but he was carrying around an industrial sized can of hairspray, I think he should be sorted.

Nikki Walker - released apparently
Brett Thompson - nothing, just isn't getting picked
Michael Tait - ditto
Damien Hoyland - 7s
Tom Brown - injured

Nematode wrote:Just been on the ER website and what's happened to these backs?

Nikki Walker - got a player cosch role. We only signed him on the SRU look after people policy
Brett Thompson - No idea, he was a cheap 6 month deal just in case he showed something, obviously hasn't
Michael Tait - His dad's well thought of, see 1
Damien Hoyland - 7s
Tom Brown - Broken, should be back shortly as back 3 cover.

Beat me to it RDW. Think mine is more accurate though.

George Carlin wrote:

Nematode wrote:It's probably too early to say, but what do people think about Hamish Watson's chances for the future? In the (limited) games I've seen, he's been very mobile, athletic and carried too. He reminds me a little of Hooper.

The 7 jersey is quite bare at the moment. I'm not utterly convinced by Fusaro and Brown & Barclay seem to be pushing on a bit. Ross Rennie is in the SRU wilderness and Tyrone Holmes is hardly cut out for Glasgow tbh.

*ER stats put him down at 101kg

I think that the jersey is Blair Cowan's to lose at the moment, to be honest. I am also worried about how badly John Barclay has faded from the scene (playing behind a more dominant pack would help him, of course) and like it or not, Rennie committed career suicide by deciding to put himself at risk of playing Championship rugby.

As a footnote, if I was Will Bordill or Tommy Spinks training week in and out with the Glasgow Warrior team and seeing colleagues age group colleagues like Gray, Fagerson and Allan getting game time, I would look at Fozzy and Sherlock and think "I could bloody do THAT".

I would not write off Rennie completely yet. It would not be completely unprecedented for us to pick someone from the championship. We are not exactly overflowing with quality sevens at the moment and Rennie when fit and in form, which he seems to be for Bristol at the moment is a very special player. As I said on the other thread, I watched the Scarlets game on Friday and did not really see anything from JB. He was subbed and the replacement looked a lot better.

I guess the squad announcement is going to be interesting!

Just watched the highlights - the bits they showed made us look quite good! Obviously didn't show the bad bits though.

Pleasing to see we left a few tries out there.

The thing that gets me about Dragons is that it is obvious the game plan of kicking isn't working, so why don't we at least try to put the ball through the hands? Lyn must be able to see that even if a kick is put where it is meant to go, our chase is generally pretty ineffective. We aren't going to get out of this rut, even when we get players back unless we try things more.

Didn't watch yesterday thankfully and not going to rush to do it either. The next few games are pretty tough too. Stade away will be messy, Newcastle home is a game we could target if we were showing any sort of form, but will probably have our heads right down after the Stade game and then Ulster away in the league (which unfortunately I have booked up to go to).

On the upside, Lyn will hopefully now realise that Pewtner has to be one of our wingers. He is a pretty handy try scorer for us, when given the chance.

RDW_Scotland wrote:Pleasing to see we left a few tries out there.

Are you Rob Moffatt??

As in we were at least creating opportunities! I'd rather we butchered a few chances than didn't have any chances at all...

Obviously I'd prefer if we actually scored them though!

funnyExiledScot wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:Pleasing to see we left a few tries out there.

Are you Rob Moffatt??

Or Gregor Townsend, former Scotland '[defence is the best form of] attack' coach?

The Visser mistake in the first half was an absolute howler. Unopposed over the try line. All he had to do was flop on the ball and yet somehow managed to bounce it over the dead ball line. Horrible mistake after such good work from Watson in following up on the chase.

Watson's disallowed score was just great defence from the Dragons 7, but a cracking run from Visser to set it up. Some great footwork from the big guy to create the space.

There were some positives from the performance (as well as the obvious bonus of winning the game comfortably), but we ought to keep feet firmly on the floor. The Dragons have some good individual players but were hopelessly disjointed. We still managed to make a dog's breakfast of the lineout on a number of occasions and the scrum is not convinving. On the plus side their try aside (which was alarming flimsy defence), we kept them away from our 22 pretty well, Sam Beard looks a decent option at 13 and brings the back three into the game nicely, Tonks looks fit and both Visser and Fife are sharp. I also thought Coman carried the ball well in what to me looked like his best game in an Edinburgh jersey. Good timing as well given the loss of Du Preez for presumably an extended period. Big chance now for James Ritchie hopefully.

I've been pretty doom and gloom recently, and I do think we have a long way to go, but it was in the end a comfortable home win and some of the players with question marks over them put their hands up.

Edinburgh gave an update on Du Preez, although it was fairly low on details!

All it says is that he's had surgery, with no estimate of how long out. They didn't say what he had surgery on


I suspect no news is bad news.

Fingers crossed for Du Preez. You'd at least hope his absence might make some of the other players step up a bit and take some responsibility / leadership .

Half an hour in to the viewage my recorderisation of this game.. Watson and Heathcoate impressive. Coman and Kennedy....eh...less so.

I know I talking to myself and watching a game a day after everyone else but Hamish Watson is immense. I assume he is from Ayr?

Argybargy wrote:I know I talking to myself and watching a game a day after everyone else but Hamish Watson is immense.  I assume he is from Ayr?

Close, Leicester academy...

Didnt realise Leicester academy was a feeder club to Ayr.

He (Watson) just goes about his business, makes his tackles and a has a decent burst of space when it breaks up. MOM for me.

"Following a serious lower leg injury sustained 26 minutes into Saturday's win over Dragons, Edinburgh Rugby no 8 Cornell Du Preez underwent surgery at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh over the weekend.

Cornell and all at Edinburgh Rugby convey our heartfelt thanks to the Paramedics from the Scottish Ambulance Service who attended to him on the pitch, to the orthopaedic department, trauma consultants and staff at the Royal Infirmary for their expertise and care during his stay, and to the many supporters for their goodwill messages.

Now back in the care of the Edinburgh Rugby medical team, Cornell's progress will be monitored over the next few weeks to enable a timeline for recovery to be put together.

Aside from the usual bumps and bruises consistent with such an encounter, there were no further significant injuries from Saturday's game.

Players currently on the injured list are: Carl Bezuidenhout (knee), Wicus Blaauw (knee), Neil Cochrane (hamstring), David Denton (hamstring), Jamie Farndale (knee), Stuart McInally (foot), Fraser McKenzie (knee), Matt Scott (shoulder) and Michael Tait (knee). All are progressing well with their respective recoveries."

Gilchrist was outstanding and for me should have been MOtM, Watson played well but Gilchrist's impact was massive.

Du Preez injury was Nasty with a capital N. We are now looking really bare in the backrow, I wonder if Rambo will make an appearance at 8 since we are without Denton and Du Preez.

It's hard to put too much shine on the win the Dragons were hopeless. I didn't believe a team could be worse than Edinburgh but I was surprised they were dross.

Edinburgh's performance, Satisfactory.

Anyone fancy doing a thread for the Exfoliators' European Rugby Challenge Cup game against those Bordeaux Begley types?

Currently on it GC