WHAT a game, what a result. Edinburgh put themselves in pole position in their European Challenge Cup group when their two wings, Damien Hoyland and Tom Brown, engineered a dramatic late try to produce a nail-biting win over Harlequins.
It was a performance that had echoes of the match against Racing Metro four years ago that inspired the Murrayfield men’s charge to the Heineken Cup semi-final.
Hoyland’s high “hail Mary” kick to the line was taken by Brown, who kept above the defence and had the strength to reach out, ground the ball and put Edinburgh back in front in a game they won, lost and then won again.
It was an equally interesting afternoon for prop Murray McCallum, who started it playing and scoring for Heriot’s before being taken off and rushed to Murrayfield where he took the field for the final minutes after Rory Sutherland pulled a groin muscle in the final seconds of the warm-up.
“It was a rollercoaster of a game,” said Duncan Hodge, Edinburgh’s acting head coach. “We conceded a soft try early on but to come back and play like we did for half-an-hour was unbelievable. Then we lost our way for a number reasons, and got pounded for 25 to 30 minutes.
“To come back from that and somehow find the will to win in the last 10 minutes was unbelievable. There is loads of technical stuff to work on, we appreciate that, but in front of our home fans it was great to repay them and score some tries. It was great for the players, too, and it will do them the world of good.”
He was right. Mistakes from the kick-off allowed Harlequins a lineout maul for scrum-half Karl Dickson to break off the back and offload to wing Charlie Walker for the opening score with little more than a minute gone.
That turned out to be the cue for Edinburgh to turn on the style with four tries in the next 22 minutes. The first came when Phil Burleigh found space after Magnus Bradbury had pinched the ball. Though he was caught, Allan Dell, Sutherland’s replacement in the starting XV, was there in support. Soon afterwards a scrum on their opponents’ 22 gave full-back Blair Kinghorn the chance to pop up on the blindside at fly-half to sidestep the Quins defence and go over.
A bit of a lull in the scoring followed, though Nasi Manu’s interception and Brown’s chase of a kick into the corner both deserved more than they got. In the end, the third score came thanks to the brilliance of Hoyland. He was put clear, had the pace to get past the first line, chipped over the second and when he was caught had Manu in support to go over.
Hoyland was soon back in the action, with quick hands from Burleigh again putting him through. Kinghorn popped up in support and openside flanker Hamish Watson was there to take the scoring pass.
Little more than 24 minutes on the board and the scoring bonus point in the bag already. It was almost too good to be true. Maybe it was – especially when Quins hit back late in the half with a penalty try as Edinburgh were judged to have pulled down a line-out drive.
But Edinburgh, had the final word of the opening 40 minutes as Quins rejected a kickable penalty, lost the ball and Hoyland ran in the score from his own 22. Controversially an off-the-ball clash between Jason Tovey and Walker ended with both in the sin bin even though all Tovey had done was get tackled illegally.
Harlequins had had most of the possession while Edinburgh were living off their wits and after the break the visitors started to make that pay as the penalty count against the Scots steadily rose.
It gave Quins the chance to go to their maul and it paid off handsomely, earning the space for prop Kyle Sinckler to rumble over before a second penalty try brought the visitors back within range and a series of pick-and-goes from the forwards gave Mat Luamanu, the replacement back row, the score that set up the climax, with Brown snatching victory and a robust Edinburgh defence holding out in the final seconds.
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