Edinburgh vs Harlequins - Saturday 22 October 2016

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Game: Edinburgh vs Harlequins
Date: Saturday 22nd October 2016
Kick-off: 3:15pm
Venue: BT Murrayfield
Competition: Mickey Mouse Cup - Pool 5
Form:
Timisoara Saracens 17 - 59 Edinburgh Rugby
Harlequins 43 - 21 Stade Francais
Interesting Facts:
Edinburgh - The Edinburgh District side was formed in 1872 to play against a Glasgow District side. The teams met on 23 November 1872 at Burnbrae and Edinburgh won 3–0 in a 20-a-side fixture. This is the oldest inter-district match in the world and to mark this the current Glasgow and Edinburgh sides play for the 1872 Cup every year, which Edinburgh typically wins handsomely.

Harlequins - The Hampstead Football Club was founded in 1866 and the first recorded game took place in 1867. The club was renamed Harlequin Rugby Football Club in 1870, supposedly because the membership was no longer purely local but the HFC monogram had to be retained. The word 'Harlequin' was found in a dictionary and all present agreed to the new name. This caused a split in the membership and the half that did not form the Harlequins went off and formed the club now known as Wasps.
Head to head: Edinburgh have never played Quins in European competition before.

TheMildlyFranticLlama wrote:

RiscaGame wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:The 2 yellow cards spoils things a bit (and gives us a headache losing our 10) but they can't say they weren't warned.

Shame it came from the quins wing tackling Tovey off the ball though!

What did Tovey do? Clip the boy or something?

Just scuffling on the ground after both sides had been warned for handbags

Bearing in mind Tovey was tackled from behind, 20m off the ball. Harsh in my book they both get the same punishment.

Edinburgh's game isn't going to get any tighter with Mata coming on!

Edinburgh player straight in at the side there

Also, damn this game is a mad as a box of frogs in a princess factory

High tackle on yarde

Ohhhh Edinburgh...

This is torture now!

This game is bonkers.

Eh?

What the hell

So it was Edinburgh ball all along?

I thought it was a quins throw?

Yeah me too

Ahahaha Poite is something else today!

Dear me QUins losing the ball on the line there when a drop goal was just asking!!!!

Blimey - what a finish.

Well done to both teams and congratulations to Edinburgh.

That game was exhausting, totally totally bonkers. Very exciting to watch though, not sure Poite knew what planet he was on for a lot of it

NEVER IN DOUBT

Commiserations Quins, so nearly turned that one around, real credit for taking it right to the wire

Well played, Edinburgh.

watched the second half. Very entertaining

That was one of the strangest games I've ever seen. Edinburgh were brilliant on turnover ball and Quins far too generous in coughing it up, but there were more inexplicable TMO decisions than I've ever seen.

Missed the 2nd half - sounds like it is worth watching!

Definitely, will be a lot more pleasant watching it knowing we eventually (somehow) win though!

Great result for Edinburgh, looking forward to watching this one.

Well done to the exfoliators - sounds like a cracking game.

What did I just see?

Great game but poor old Marler was a victim of his past reputation, he didn't do anything wrong.

yappysnap wrote:What did I just see?

A win for Edinburgh?

Well
Won Edinburgh! Sounds like it wasn't a day for defences...


At least the double BP should help us qualify

There was a bit of oddness about some of the officiating but I reckon the result was probably just about right. The ref just seemed a little confused at times.

George Carlin wrote:Well done to the exfoliators - sounds like a cracking game.

Some people must exfoliate in Glasgow George?

stub wrote:

George Carlin wrote:Well done to the exfoliators - sounds like a cracking game.

Some people must exfoliate in Glasgow George?

Only small children and drunken young men who accidentally play with cheese graters.

Well done Edinburgh, pretty deadly on loose ball!

Well Edinburgh fans have been complaining about a lack of entertainment over the last few years but they certainly got their money's worth yesterday!

Our first half counter attacking was breathtaking and it was a pleasure to see young Scottish players showing great skill and pace. Quins were dreadful though and their handling gifted us several tries.

2nd half was a completely different story with Quins grabbing the game by the scruf of the neck. Somehow we managed to find a way to win which was fantastic to see.

It was a classic Edinburgh performance in many ways - score lots of tries but also give away 5, I don't think we gathered a single restart which gave Quins easy possession just as we needed to consolidate our lead. I can't help but think our first half lead was more because of Quins' mistakes than our brilliance.

Final word on the ref who made some utterly baffling decisions that could have ruined the game. He was probably just about as baffling to both teams so that's all you can ask for!

Still a hell of a lot of work to do for Edinburgh but the attacking play was great to watch.

George Carlin wrote:

stub wrote:

George Carlin wrote:Well done to the exfoliators - sounds like a cracking game.

Some people must exfoliate in Glasgow George?

Only small children and drunken young men who accidentally play with cheese graters.

The most promising thing for me was to see us play heads up rugby, with players backing themselves and attacking space. Thats something we've barely seen this side do in years, yet its also what we used to be known for. Absolutely agree that it was a classic Edinburgh performance in that sense.

We really struggled to put any kind of stamp on the second half, and were just hanging in there. Discipline wasn't helping us with that, we made far too many infringements and Chris Dean seemed to be at fault for a fair number of them - definitely something to work on!

Restarts as RDW says were a shambles and the line out was far from solid. Still, it was the most enjoyable Edinburgh performance in a long time!

Some of those card decisions (both sides and also the decision to not give cards) seem a bit special

Yes the cards were a bit odd at time. I thought maybe Poite had supplied the pre game champagne and had a bit too much?

Very good Edinburgh defense at times though, and Quins were just too sloppy. I said before it was a risk rushing Nev back and he looked rusty, Swiel controlled a lot more. I'd like to see Tim start and Nev perhaps close games out now.

The full game is on YouTube - well worth a watch for those who missed it.

I really enjoyed that game. Proper harum scarum rugby.

Excellent tries, crazy swings in scoring, a bit of handbags, mad decisions.

This Challenge Cup is ok, isn't it?

Just watched the highlights from the game, i'm very glad to see that the shackles have been let off this Edinburgh team. A huge amount of work to do, but very impressed with the young Scottish players in particular. Bradbury carrying on his excellent form, Kinghorn looking very dangerous and Hoyland electric.

A huge amount to do, but definitely going in the right direction.

With Zebre at home this Friday Edinburgh have a good chance to keep momentum going, with Ulster at home the week after before the AIs.  Zebre played yesterday, and are totally guff, so I'm expecting a complete horsing on Friday.  Both teams will be without their international players for the Ulster game (most likely) but hopefully we'll still have enough to give it a good go.

5 in a row before the international break would be a great achievement after the start we had.

Cyril wrote:I really enjoyed that game. Proper harum scarum rugby.

Excellent tries, crazy swings in scoring, a bit of handbags, mad decisions.

This Challenge Cup is ok, isn't it?

It really is.  

It feels a bit like the old Heineken. There are a lot of good teams in it and a few poor ones, but that variability makes it a bit more interesting.  Rugby is normally such a deterministic game, especially at the top level but I think tournaments benefit from unpredictability.  The quality of the tournament is largely dictated by the effort the teams put in and it looks like most folk are trying.

...apart from the French.

It has been great seeing teams taking this seriously - teams like Quins who know that they probably won't win the AP and will never win the Champions Cup, but they have a decent chance of winning this one.  Who doesn't want to win some silverware in their careers? You're hardly going to remember that year you finished 6th just to qualify for a tournament...

Of course there are reasons teams don't take this seriously and it would help if the winner got a Champions Cup spot (it really is ridiculous that they don't) but the more teams that take it seriously the more exposure it will get.

RDW_Scotland wrote:The full game is on YouTube - well worth a watch for those who missed it.

I'll make time this evening. Looking forward to it!

funnyExiledScot wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:The full game is on YouTube - well worth a watch for those who missed it.

I'll make time this evening. Looking forward to it!

The first half really was sensational from Edinburgh. The 2nd half not so much but we found a way to win, plus you can laugh with puzzlement at some of the ref's decisions!

It was an entertaining game to watch, but as with so many games this season, AP & Europe, the officiating is becoming laughable. I thought the TMO was there to help the ref get the right decision, not make any mansausageup worse.

Tovey was unlucky to be binned. Walker took him out off the ball. Of course they are going to have some handbags, but the cause was Walker so he and only he should have been binned. I know they had all been warned, but if Poite yellows Tovey, then for 2 yellow offences - tackle off the ball and handbags, Walker should have seen red. Yellow for Walker only would have been the right call.

How on earth did they come to the decision to sinbin Marler? Both lines came together, Toolis (?) came down on Marlers back, the Edinburgh rear lifter lost his bind, the whole thing looked messy, but it was an accident and to penalise Marler was ridiculous. The only way to avoid this is to go to U15 rules and have uncontested lifting.

Then to penalise Brown, when Edinburgh knocked on into touch was another farce. The TMO should have explained to Poite what happened when Poite was "dazed and confused" in his explanation. The commentators and viewers saw what had happened, how did the TMO not.

Really disappointing from Quins. Nice to see that we are carrying on our tradition of being rubbish when travelling!
Fair play to Edinburgh, that 1st half performance was clinical - and yes I agree RDW, some of those ref decisions were unusual.

Was nice to see that Quins came out with a bit more oomph in the 2nd half - but play didn't really improve until Swiel came on for NEv. I know he is the big name player at the moment but if Swiel is playing better at the moment then I would much prefer to stick with him.

RDW_Scotland wrote:

funnyExiledScot wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:The full game is on YouTube - well worth a watch for those who missed it.

I'll make time this evening. Looking forward to it!

The first half really was sensational from Edinburgh.  The 2nd half not so much but we found a way to win, plus you can laugh with puzzlement at some of the ref's decisions!

It was Poite right? I usually like Poite, particularly the way he refs the scrum. Some fans love all the technical stuff at the scrum but I like to think of it as more of a shoving contest, and Poite is almost the opposite of Joubert in that regard. Poite will generally penalise the team who is firmly in reverse gear, whereas Joubert will look for silly little things to pick up on. It's always a laugh when you see a pile of forwards lying crumpled on the floor, having been shunted back 10 metres, looking up so see the silly face of Craig Joubert awarding them a penalty for something no-one understands. It must feel such a hollow mini-victory.