by royc on Sat Apr 01, 2017 12:15 am
I will be a lone voice here then in thinking Edinburgh actually played very well tonight and deserve 10/10 for a very good effort. They came close to beating the top team in the French league and didn't look at all outclassed. One bit of luck and they'd have been through to the semis, against a fine team that should really be playing in the big Cup.
It was a great game and you inevitably get a few fumbles and errors when you're playing at that speed and intensity. One thing that was refreshingly different was the lack of persistent professional cheating by La Roch, a nice change from playing the Irish and Welsh teams!
I thought SHC had a good game, far better service and he really put himself about, loved it when Retier got away from him and he powered after him and brought him down, that's the stuff! Dean did very well too, forget the hiccup, he is shaping up nicely in attack. And lovely try from Phil Burleigh, who looked close to his best tonight. All the backs were good, Weir played very well when he came on, Tom Brown worked his socks off for 80 mins and I thought Kinghorn was good, wouldn't fault him too much for the missed tackle on Retier, in slowmo the guy twisted away from it and the chance was gone; these things happen at that speed.
Great stint by the pack too, a few things didn't quite click but the effort and intensity were impressive, some smashing performances there. Watson is just immense, but I thought all 8 plus bench put in a great innings. Good to see Ford, Mata, Gilchrist, McCallum etc really going for it.
The team and much-maligned coaches - not least by me - deserve a big pat on the back for that display, that is more like it.