Edinburgh 18 Munster 23: defeat adds to Scottish woe

Senior Sports Writer

Monday 3 September 2012

The emotions were as mixed as the message sent out by Tim Visser and his team-mates on Saturday as European rugby's most lethal finisher opened his 2012/13 account with a hat-trick of tries but still finished on the losing side in a RaboDirect Pro12 match at Murrayfield.

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Kevin Ferrie

Last season's second bottom finish in the Pro12 was at least partly down to the way the club focused on their breakthrough Heineken Cup campaign in the second half of the season, but their supporters were entitled to believe it was going to be different this time around as Michael Bradley fielded the strongest side he could against his native Munster.

Since the Irish provinces continue to ease their top players back into action, that should have resulted in a home win to open this season. They started as if it would be very much that way, and when they played at full intensity, there were real signs of what they are capable of.Afterwards, Tim Visser, who fully justified Scotland's decision to take him on tour in the summer even though he had not completed his residential qualification until the second match by duly marking his debut with a brace of scores, expressed disappointment and frustration at the end result of the game."We dominated up front, we were winning the physical battles around the field and we were scoring tries, which is brilliant, but that obviously doesn't tell the whole story because we were losing ball at crucial moments in the game and we were leaking tries," Visser observed."That doesn't tell the whole story either, though, because I thought we were quite good in defence generally. So there's a lot of good things to take away but we have to hold onto the ball to win games like this.""We've done it before, though, where we've scored tries and not won the game so it is hugely frustrating when we feel like we're doing a lot of things well."Perhaps the single best thing from the club's point of view, is that becoming "Scottish" does not seem to have damaged the Dutch-born winger's instincts that have seen him top the league scoring charts in each of his three seasons spent in Edinburgh."There's always a little bit of doubt when you've not played for a while," continued Visser. "Especially since the summer tour and coming back not having played any friendly games is always going to be tough, so I'm hugely pleased from a personal perspective to get my try scoring back underway in what is a massive season for me."It is a massive season for one and all in Scottish rugby, particularly those within the professional teams who have a responsibility to demonstrate that the SRU's increased investment in them and the managerial appointments made, have been justified.Prior to the weekend, a win/loss ratio of played five and lost five was not a particular cause for concern since those matches could be dismissed as irrelevant in competitive terms, but defeats for both in their opening Pro12 matches now make it a far from magnificent seven from seven.Of those defeats, this was the hardest for all concerned to take due to the respective make-up of the two sides, and Edinburgh could not really even blame rustiness since they were the ones who held the upper hand early on. Visser's first two tries had been registered within half an hour of kick off.Edinburgh were not helped by that rarest of problems for them, a goal-kicking off day for their normally so reliable captain Greig Laidlaw, but even taking that into account it would be wrong to claim that the opportunist try just before the break from Munster's Ian Keatley meant the score offered an unfair reflection of the balance of the game at the break.Keatley, scorer of all his side's first half points as they turned level at 10 all, nudged his side ahead just after the interval and while Laidlaw's single success cancelled that out, they struck again just before the hour when Edinburgh's defence let Luk O'Dea dance through all too easily.Keatley converted and added a penalty which meant Visser's third try would bring his side only a bonus point.

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Edinburgh 18 Munster 23: defeat adds to Scottish woe

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