A scalp to savour for Edinburgh, and a performance that tingled the spine.
Munster, the reigning RaboDirect PRO12 champions, showed their opinion of the Scots by resting a handful of top players, but it was Edinburgh who were galvanised by that approach. After some timid league performances over the first few weeks of the season, Michael Bradley’s players summoned skill and self-belief and ended with a victory that was thoroughly deserved.
Their form to date had given Edinburgh few reasons for confidence going into the match, but they played like men possessed. They not only forced errors from their opponents, but capitalised on the spoils. Dave Denton, who narrowly missed out on a place in Scotland’s World Cup squad, was outstanding, and there was a muscular contribution from Sean Cox in the second row. Greig Laidlaw and Lee Jones shone, too, but in truth there were few Edinburgh players who did not.
Leighton Hodges, the Welsh referee, had clearly decided he would be a stickler for propriety at the breakdown, a policy that was never going to find favour with Munster, whose impropriety in that area is legendary. So it was that Hodges punished the Irish side heavily for any attempt to slow down Edinburgh’s ball, with the consequence that the capital side were nine points up inside 15 minutes.
Their points all came from the boot of Laidlaw. The scrum-half clipped over his first penalty in the third minute after Deasy Scott, the Munster full-back, was penalised for holding on to the ball after he had been tackled. The second came four minutes later, when another player was pinged for not rolling away. The third, after 15 minutes, was for the same offence.
Yet the spate of penalties measured Edinburgh’s positive approach as much as Munster’s efforts to counter them, and the Scots had even more reward in the 21st minute, when Cox and Stuart McInally thundered deep into Irish territory down the right. Quick transfers moved the ball left, keeping Munster on the back foot, and when it came back across the pitch, Matt Scott spotted a gap in the midfield and jinked past three players for a wonderful try.
That score, with Laidlaw’s conversion, gave Edinburgh a 16-0 lead, but it also acted as a wake-up call for Munster. Their domination of the second quarter matched the hosts’ control over the first 20 minutes. Edinburgh still had the better of things on the scoreboard at the break, although their lead by then had been cut to seven points, 16-9, after three penalties by fly-half Ian Keatley.
However, Edinburgh’s speed to the ball continued to impress. Jones, on the right wing, looked particularly sharp, and there were some lovely touches from Gregor Hunter, the young fly-half. The Scots’ most obvious weakness was in the scrum, although they improved in that area after Shaun Knight, the England under-20 prop on loan from Gloucester, replaced the injured Lewis Niven just before half-time.
Yet Knight’s most significant contribution was in the loose, when he pilfered the ball near the Edinburgh 22 and launched an attack that ended with Steven Lawrie sprinting over for Edinburgh’s second try of the game, in the 47th minute. Laidlaw had by then already landed his fourth penalty of the match, and the scrum-half’s conversion moved Edinburgh along to 26-9.
Munster still had half an hour to salvage something, but their efforts were fitful. Replacement centre Danny Barnes squeezed over for their only try with eight minutes left, but it was a game in which Edinburgh were always destined to have the last word. Laidlaw duly delivered it with a penalty four minutes from the end. It kept up his 100% kicking record on an evening when his side could do no wrong.
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