Cardiff Blues 34

Edinburgh 16

FORGET the promises of a top-four finish for Edinburgh this season, Unless they buck their ideas up a long way from this below-par performance, they are going to struggle to beat last season’s ninth place in the Guinness PRO12.

The poor conditions for their opening match in Cardiff last night were not much of an excuse as they found their much-vaunted pack playing second fiddle for most of the game and on the few occasions when they did manage to mount a threatening attack, their handling let them down.

The problem for Edinburgh was that for all the excitement about their new-look back division, it takes time for these things to come together and there were just too many examples of them not getting their game quite right on a night when handling was always going to be tricky.

More worrying for coach Alan Solomons and his team was that the pack never really got going either. Cardiff are not the biggest or strongest forward unit Edinburgh will face this season but they quickly put paid to any hopes the Scots had of steamrollering their way to victory.

All that gloom comes despite a perfect start, with the forwards winning a penalty at the first scrum and Duncan Weir slotting his first points for his new club with the game barely two minutes old.

Edinburgh struggled in defence, however, despite showing a lot more enthusiasm for the tackling chores than they had last week in the final warm-up match.

Twice, Steve Shingler, who pitched up at Cardiff after a complicated Welsh shuffle of fly-halves, opened the visitors up. The first time he made a mess of finding his support, the second time he scored and converted.

He did make a mess of a reasonably simple penalty to extend the home lead and Edinburgh were quick to take advantage of the let-off, kicking to the corner and, after most of the forwards had had a drive at the line, eventually released it to where Solomoni “Junior” Rasolea had space to go over for his first try on his competitive debut.

Weir converted and added a pair of penalties, but Cardiff nudged one back before taking the lead again when they copied their visitors, kicking to the corner and mauling their way to the line. Edinburgh brought the drive down and referee John Lacey marched straight under the posts for a penalty try, sending flanker Jamie Ritchie to the sin-bin for good measure.

Weir had two long-range chances to cut the deficit, but both slid wide and in reality the Scots had few complaints about heading into the break trailing by four points, the differential staying the same throughout the third quarter with only a pair of penalties from the two kickers keeping the scoreboard operators awake.

While Cardiff were undoubtedly showing more penetration when they moved the ball, the Edinburgh defence on their own line were too stubborn to break easily, despite long periods of pressure.

In the end, just being stubborn was never going to be enough and, the Cardiff forwards did enough from another line-out maul to get the ball to the Edinburgh line with Nick Williams, the home No 8, crashing over for a trademark score. With the rain now hammering down, realistically there was no way back for an Edinburgh side who had never shown the capacity to keep the ball for long enough to build a serious threat even when it was drier, needing two scores and under the cosh in territory terms, it was always a lost cause.

Instead, they surrendered another lineout a few yards from their own line and though Edinburgh stopped the drive, they didn’t have anybody guarding the space behind the maul and Tomos Williams, the Cardiff scrum half was quick to nip in for the bonus point try for the home side.

Scorers: Cardiff Blues: Tries: Shingler, Pen try, N Williams, T Williams. Cons: Shingler (2), Anscombe (2). Pens: Shingler (2)

Edinburgh: Try: Rasolea. Con: Weir. Pens: Weir (3)

Cardiff Blues: D Fish (M Morgan, 57); B Scully, C Allen, R Lee-Lo, T James; S Shingler (G Anscombe, 51), T Williams (L Jones, 72); R Gill (G Jenkins, 51), K Myhill (K Dacey, 42), T Filise (S Andrews, 59), G Earle (J Down, 65), M Cook, J Navidi, E Jenkins (C), N Williams (C Dolan, 72).

Edinburgh: G Bryce (B Kinghorn, 76); R Scholes, S Tofilau (C Dean, 67), S Rasolea, T Brown; D Weir, N Fowles (S Hidalgo-Clyne, 57); R Sutherland (J Cosgrove, 57), R Ford (S McInally, 51), W Nel (S Berghan, 61-77), F McKenzie (B Toolis, 51), G Gilchrist (C), J Ritchie (sin bin: 33-43, H Watson, N Manu (M Bradbury, 33).

Referee: J Lacey (Ireland)

Attendance: 4,708