AFTER six months out, Matt Scott, the Scotland centre, made a winning return to action yesterday as Edinburgh ran out comfortable winners at BT Murrayfield.
Tom Brown, another internationalist making his comeback from long-term injury, also contributed one of the three tries.
Scott had expected to make his comeback from the bench, but when he arrived at the stadium found that a bug had forced Sam Beard out of the side and that he was starting. Scott would see out the full 80 minutes.
Inevitably after such a long absence, it was not an error-free performance. However, there were glimpses of the explosive talent that had made Scott so indispensable to the national side, with one side-stepping break through the massed ranks of the opposition particularly impressive.
"I'm very happy to be back," he said afterwards. "I felt great, felt fit, which is testament to the work the conditioners have done with me. I was a bit rusty, made a couple of mistakes but after six months out I was always going to do that, I knew that had to pick myself up and get on with it. It was ideal - 80 minutes and a win.
"I know I have a long run in with a month and a bit of games before the Six Nations. The guys are playing exceptionally well for the national team so I have a lot of competition and need to start playing well as soon as possible. Of course that [the Six Nations] is on the radar but we have an important block of games with Edinburgh to worry about first."
The only minor irritation for Alan Solomons, the Edinburgh head coach, was that, after Brown had collected the third try with a full quarter of the game to go, his side could not finish job with a bonus point. That was mainly because they started to give away penalties, going down to 13 men for a while with two players sent to the sin bin.
Edinburgh always had their noses in front, however. Andries Strauss, the centre, went over in the opening minutes after they had manufactured a four-to-one overlap and Dougie Fife, the wing, squeezed over in the corner after a sustained attack on the visitors' line after the break. Both were converted by Tom Heathcote, the fly-half, who also added three penalties to bring his personal tally to 13.
Cardiff, who had three men sin binned at various stages, came close to scoring themselves, being held up over the line and twice dropping the ball going for a score. They did manage a consolation try for Adam Thomas, the centre, but they ran into an Edinburgh defence which refused to buckle.
"It was a performance of heart and spirit," said Solomons. "Defence can often be a matter of attitude and that was what was shown out there. We have shown tremendous resilience."
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