EDINBURGH were far from disgraced in going down by five tries to four in this pre-season friendly at Heywood Road.
It was their first outing of the new season, while Sale have already played a couple of games, also, SRU protocols denied the capital side the use of their experienced internationals. So, at the end Head Coach Alan Solomons was far from despondent, pointing-out how much his young guns, such as Jamie Ritchie and Magnus Bradbury had benefitted from the occasion.
“We played some good attacking stuff, we scored a cracking try at the end, and while we were out-muscled, particularly in the second half, we were not disgraced and we can take a lot from this hit out,” said Solomons.
The game got off to a flying start, with Will Addison putting Sale in front, only to see former Ulster man Rory Scholes reply in kind for the visitors. AJ MacGinty goaled the Addison try, with Duncan Weir similarly on-target for Edinburgh.
The loss of former Sale man Viliami Fahaki yo a yellow card, Ian Tempest deciding his tackle was late, enabled Sale to go back in front, as lock Jonathan Mills went over for a try, again converted by MacGinty. But, as with the first score, Edinburgh quickly replied, Will Helu rewarding some fierce Edinburgh pressure with a try down a sparsely-populated narrow side, Weir again converting.
However, just before the break, Sale wwent back into the lead through Cameron Neild, with MacGinty again adding the extras.
Edinburgh began the second half strongly and when they forced a penalty line-out in the bottom corner, Stuart McInally found his jumper, then took over at the base of the driving maul to touch down, with Weir, for the third time, pulling Edinburgh level with the conversion.
Sale then decided to opt for English Premiership-style power play, keeping the ball in their powerful pack and getting their reward with two tries, both from driven close-range mauls. England hooker Rob Webber got the first, which was unconverted, Johnny Leota the second, which Dan Mugford goaled.
A string of substitutions then took the sting out of the game, but, in the final play of the game, Edinburgh, in a rare second half incursion into the Sale half, scored their fourth try, courtesy of Blair Kinghorn, who danced through the home defence, before adding the additional points with the final kick of the game.
Given the comparative experience of the two teams, Edinburgh cannot be too-disappointed at the outcome. All their young players got a chance to experience this level of rugby and Solomons was particularly pleased with how his young tight forwards – Murray McCallum, George Turner, Nick Beavons, not to mention the more-experienced Magnus Bradbury and Jamie Ritchie stood their ground in the face of the Sale power.
Behind the scrum, Nick Fowlds, Sean Kennedy and Sam Hidalgo-Clyne gave nothing away to Peter Stringer and Mike Phillips, while the Edinburgh backs always looked lively, and defended very well.
Yes, it is never easy to lose an Anglo-Scottish encounter, but, Solomons has every right to be upbeat after this match.
“We can build them up so we are not out-muscled, we will, as we play more games, cut out the mistakes, and, we will have our experienced core players back for the start of the season. I am not down-hearted at how this game turned out,” said Solomons.
Thankfully, there were no major injury concerns from the match, which was played at a good tempo and in the right spirit, although, some of the Sale fans were not exactly enamoured with Ian Tempest's officiating at the scrum, where he repeatedly found fault with the Sale pack.
However, Edinburgh's Simon Berghan was the only prop to see yellow, after one particular scrum in front of the Edinburgh posts, was re-set five or six times.
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