WITH the chance of a Scotland spot there to be grabbed, Magnus Bradbury came back from a four-month lay-off recovering from a dislocated shoulder to put in a man of the match performance that included the vital go-ahead point try early in the final quarter.
His performance was badly needed with the rest of the team struggling to convert their forward power into scores, though they did come up with a final flourish for Duhan van der Merwe to add the bonus-point try and then a final score that added a gloss to the score line.
“He had a big shift physically,” said Richard Cockerill, the head coach. “As the game went on he seemed to get stronger and stronger. I am delighted he is back, he has worked very hard to get himself fit and has three or four weeks of really good training and credit to himself and the medical and conditioning staff to get him into such a good state of physical preparation.”
Bradbury’s performance could not have come at a better time for Gregor Townsend, the Scotland coach, who is facing a back-row injury crisis with Ryan Wilson the latest to go down, leaving a vacancy behind him.
In reality, Bradbury may need a bit more rugby before he is properly ready for the Test stage but he certainly did his best to convince Townsend he is ready now and Cockerill was confident that if the call came, Bradbury could answer it. “He is physically ready. He may not have that many minutes under his belt but he now has a game under his belt,” Cockerill pointed out. “Magnus had a big shift physically as the game went on and he grew stronger and stronger. I am delighted he is back and he has worked really hard to get back.
“With Scotland’s injury issues in the back row you would imagine that he will be in the mix for next week. He is looking in great nick and is a young man in the prime of his life. He is capable of that performance because we know he can do it but having come back from four months of not playing, it is a big performance.”
As for the match, Cockerill reckoned they had made harder work of getting the result than they could have done but once they had shaken off the rust from several weeks without a game, they came good when it mattered.
“Dragons only lost by a point to Munster in their last game, they have some good players and made it difficult for us,” he said. “We need to improve what we are doing but when we stuck to our plan and did what we said we were going to do, we put them under pressure and they could not cope.”
The expectation had been for an emphatic showing against a side who are out of the running for anything from this season but the Welsh came intent on playing their way out of trouble while many of Edinburgh’s problems in converting pressure into points came back to haunt them.
They had given themselves a perfect start with centre James Johnstone jinking his way thorough traffic to reach the line for an early score but knocked on a simple kick to hand the Dragons a strong attacking position, which they turned into an overlap for the levelling score for Tyler Morgan, the centre.
That set the pattern for the opening quarter with Johnstone again putting Edinburgh ahead, this time in the perfect position to capitalise on a break from Darcy Graham, another released from national training, but Morgan levelled as he picked off a pass from Chris Dean, the Edinburgh centre, to run under the posts.
The tit-for-tat scoring sequence was broken when Josh Lewis, the Dragons fly-half, landed a penalty to give the Welsh a lead before Edinburgh finished the half camped on the Welsh line without being able to turn the pressure into a score.
It had been a disappointing end to the half for the Scots but they did offer up a brief threat when the teams came back out with Graham being sent on a run down the wing, chipping ahead and only just failing to ground the ball.
It was not enough to cut out the errors, though, and when the Dragons moved upfield they might have increased their lead only for Lewis to miss a losing range shot at goal and see the home side take advantage as van der Walt landed the levelling penalty just as the match rolled into its final quarter.
That was where Edinburgh really found their feet, with Duhan van der Merwe, the wing, carving up the defence to claim two late tries, the first bringing up the vital bonus point , the second merely adding a bit of gloss to the scoreboard at the end.
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