ALAN SOLOMONS, the Edinburgh head coach, has insisted that he has no concerns about team morale after last Sunday's 62-13 mauling by the Ospreys at the Liberty Stadium, a result which came just a week after the capital club slumped to an equally depressing 13-14 home loss against Connacht.
The Ospreys helped themselves to 26 unanswered points during the final 22 minutes of last week's encounter, suggesting that the players had given up the ghost with more than a quarter of the match still to play. However, Solomons stressed a need to keep the events of last Sunday in perspective and insisted that the final scoreline was not as bad as it initially seemed once you consider the context of the whole match.
The Edinburgh coach admits that his team were holding on for dear life throughout the first hour, but also believes that the match only really started to escape their grasp midway through the second half. Silly errors and poor decisions had let the Ospreys off the hook after a period of pressure.
"They kicked to us and we took it through 11 phases until we were 15 metres from their line, but then we dropped the ball, they picked it up and scored at the other end," Solomons recalled. "Shortly after that, we got down into that right-hand corner and they had a man in the sin-bin. Our scrum was going well, we had them under the pump and they must have been on a final warning - but we elected to take the tap and lost the ball over the line. They got the scrum, then a penalty, and cleared their lines.
"If the referee gave a penalty try then I think he would have given a card, which would have made it 36-20 with them down to 13 men and 25 minutes to go. But it was the end for us instead.
"There is no way, when you've got a full-on penalty there, that you take a tap. You just don't do that. We lost our composure. I said to the boys that it's important that they see it in context. The errors go across the board and we've got to eradicate those errors, that's the key to it.
"You have to take the last 20 to 25 minutes out of this game because it was gone - which has happened to a lot of good teams over the years. Once it is gone it is almost impossible to get it back."
Solomons admitted that some home truths had been spoken this week before the whole squad drew a line under the match and moved on. He expects his team to be firing on all cylinders when Scarlets come calling this evening.
"We came in on Tuesday and had a one-on-one with all the players," said Solomons. "Then I had an opportunity, along with the staff, to review the game carefully and do a proper analysis of what happened, before we did the review with the players on Wednesday morning. I think the guys understand the situation and the morale is good.
"We went out on Wednesday afternoon and had a very, very good practice and I thought the captain's run was good [yesterday]. We've done everything we can to put the players in the right frame of mind."
Solomons believes that a lack of leadership, especially in the pack, was crucial to Edinburgh's demise last week. He rested Ross Ford, Edinburgh's most experienced forward, for the Ospreys escapade and that decision backfired when club captain Mike Coman was forced out of the match before kick-off with a head knock. That left the inexperienced James Hilterbrand to lead the pack.
Ford has been recalled for this evening's match, while Scotland captain Grant Gilchrist will look to make an impact off the bench on his return to action after ankle surgery. "I believe we've got the strength in depth and although we were missing six frontline players - four Scottish internationals - the thing for me that we missed the most was leadership in the forwards," he said.
"We've already seen the impact Gilco and Fordy have had on the training field and I have no doubt about the impact they are going to have on the game," Solomons added.
Behind the scrum, the coach has asked Sean Kennedy to be a steady hand on the tiller at scrum-half, ahead of Sam Hidalgo-Clyne who is relegated to the bench. Tom Heathcote carries on at stand-off, leaving Greig Tonks to slot in at full-back.
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