Edinburgh vs Ospreys - Sat 4th Nov

First topic message reminder :

Edinburgh Rugby

Vs

The Ospreys

Kick off: 17:30 on Sat 4th November
Venue: Dyreside
TV coverage: Live on Sky Sports Arena from 17:15

The ever flaky Edinburgh

Guinness Pro14 Conference B

Conference Position - 4th
Played - 7
Won - 4
Drawn - 0
Lost - 3
Points scored - 133
Points conceded - 125
Bonus pts - 2
Points- 18

Edinburgh team to face Ospreys

15 Blair Kinghorn (50)
14 Dougie Fife (90)
13 James Johnstone (7)
12 Phil Bureligh (64)
11 Tom Brown (112)

10 Jason Tovey (31)
9 Nathan Fowles (41)

1 Michele Rizzo (5)
2 Neil Cochrane (58)
3 Simon Berghan (39)
4 Fraser McKenzie (87)
5 Grant Gilchrist (106)
6 Luke Crosbie (4)
7 Jamie Ritchie (36)
8 Cornell du Preez (89)

Replacements

16 Cameron Fenton *
17 Rory Sutherland (50)
18 Murray McCallum (23)
19 Magnus Bradbury (36)
20 Lewis Carmichael (17)
21 Sam Hidalgo-Clyne (91)
22 Glenn Bryce (28)
23 Chris Dean (49)

Edinburgh appearances in bracket

The not so Mighty Os

Guinness Pro14 Conference A

Conference Position - 6th
Played - 7
Won - 2
Drawn - 0
Lost - 5
Points scored - 125
Points conceded - 158
Bonus pts - 3
Points- 11

The Ospreys team to play Edinburgh

15 Dan Evans
14 Dafydd Howells
13 James Hook
12 Ashley Beck
11 Tom Habberfield

10 Sam Davies
9 Brendon Leonard

1 Paul James (Capt)
2 Scott Baldwin
3 Dmitri Arhip
4 Lloyd Ashley
5 Bradley Davies
6 Olly Cracknell
7 Guy Mercer
8 Rob McCusker

REPLACEMENTS

16 Sam Parry
17 Gareth Thomas
18 Ma’afu Fia
19 Rory Thornton
20 James King
21 Reuben Morgan-Williams
22 Luke Price
23 Kieron Fonotia

Edinburgh, the world's most frustratingly inconsistent team, face off against last years beaten semi finalists the Ospreys (lost to the eventual winners the Scarlets).

Edinburgh with a new captain seem to be finding a bit more rhythm and will be against an Ospreys team that have finally ended a dire losing streak. I don't bet so I've not looked at the odds but I'd think there'd be a fag paper between the two sides at the bookies.

My prediction, Edinburgh's defence to hold out longer than the Os resulting in a narrow Edinburgh win with neither side getting a try bonus. Whether Os can get a losing bonus will be down to which gives in first. Their defense, or Edinburgh's mental fragility in attack.

BP win, great performance from Edinburgh, best i can remember for a long time!

Redemption for Bradbury!

Edinburgh staying in touch of the breakaway pack (Scarlets, Ulster and Leinster) in conference B. But dear god, what has happened to the Ospreys. Aside from the plucky defeat against Clermont they really have been tosh.

Great result that for us, delighted with it. Only saw the game from about 50 odd minutes in, can anyone give me an idea of who the standouts were? CDP picking up MoM is a great sign, heres hoping he can get back to full beast mode week in-week out

Good win for Edinburgh, but I do wonder if the Ospreys setup consider this enough of a crisis yet? They need to get rid of the coaches and bring in someone decent. Things are only going to get worse with Webb and Biggar leaving.

Thought Cammy Fenton had a promising debut tonight which is good or else our hooking resources were looking very bare!

VinceWLB wrote:What a difference having a flyhalf who can get the backline moving makes.

Assuming you mean Tovey, I’m glad he is doing well there. It seemed Cockerill didn’t especially rate him initially.

Good win that. I expected an Edinburgh win, but not that convincingly.

Just got back from Italy this afternoon and just finished watching this game on a bit of a time lag delay.

That was a really good win from Edinburgh after a slow start. When they got going though, they kept their foot right on the Osprey's throat and never let them back into the game. They ended up being totally dominant and that is not something I can remember saying before about Edinburgh when they are playing a decent team.

The jury may be out on whether the Osprey's still are a decent team, but for now we will give them the benefit of the doubt.

CDP may well have played himself onto the Scotland bench with that game. He is finally looking like the player he was a few years ago and we hoped he might be in a blue shirt.

Crosbie also had a great game, always went forward. Ritchie did not play badly, but did not look quite ready for a cap just yet. So many of the Edinburgh pack played well though, Gilchrist is not going to be far off the bench either and Sutherland had a decent return, though probably needs a few more games before coming back into international reckoning.

By the 6N though, you would expect both him and Kinghorne, who finally seems to be developing some consistency to be fully in the picture.

I am still not convinced about Fowles though, still think SHC is the better of the two at Edinburgh, though George Horne looks likely to leap frog them both for Scotland now that he is finally getting his chance.

Edinburgh are only 3 points behind Leinster in their conference now. If they can stay in touch, who knows what might happen.

RiscaGame wrote:

VinceWLB wrote:What a difference having a flyhalf who can get the backline moving makes.

Assuming you mean Tovey, I’m glad he is doing well there. It seemed Cockerill didn’t especially rate him initially.

Good win that. I expect an Edinburgh win, but not that convincingly.

Tovey really strikes me as a confidence player and now he has it in spades, his head did seem to go down a bit when Edinburgh were struggling last year though.

Cockers, to be fair, had a good look at Weir first off and Tovey was injured at the beginning of the season. Tovey has taken his chances, when Weir, who is now injured, did not.

Edinburgh do remain very thin at FH though, one injury away from a crisis!

He has always been a confidence player. He is also under less pressure there. I certainly see more positive comments about his play than when he was at Dragons too.

I’m only basing the Weir bit on when I was reading Edinburgh fans saying he wasn’t playing very well and yet Tovey wasn’t really being used. Be interesting to see what happens when Weir is fit.

RDW_Scotland wrote:Ooh that was a trip - should be a yellow!

At the very least. Could have done his medial or cruciate with the studs on the knee like that - will be lucky to not get cited and if he does could be looking at 4 weeks.

Yet again the officials are made to look inept by the tv replays. Would it be better to forget the TMO and ban the broadcaster from showing all big screen replays? It is increasingly apparent that no officials can't apply the laws well enough to stand up to the forensic trial by television, so is it time to stop the media undermining what little authority they have left?

To be fair the TMO has the power to interrupt the ref and tell him something happened. This is entirely the TMO's responsibility as the ref obviously hadn't seen it in real time - he needs to.take the flack!

RDW_Scotland wrote:Thought Cammy Fenton had a promising debut tonight which is good or else our hooking resources were looking very bare!

Same, he absolutely clattered a couple guys.