When Chris Dean registered Edinburgh’s solitary try last weekend it was perhaps understandable that in what was a first Champions Cup quarter-final for most of the home team, he thought it was a key moment in the match.
His score was overdue reward for their early dominance, Munster having taken the lead against the run of play when down to 14 men.
“It was in my head that it was a turning point for us,” he admitted.
“We had a lot of pressure on them early in the game and finally in that phase we found a way to get over the line and I thought it felt like it was a turning point to keep putting the pressure on. We did for the most part, apart from the few phases that led up to their try and our small turn-off in concentration.”
Therein lies the real lesson from Saturday’s encounter, because Edinburgh were to go on to receive lessons in the harsh nature of what it takes to win knockout matches in the Champions Cup.
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Some of those were rather unsavoury, not least the incident that has brought scrutiny on Tadgh Beirne for the way the giant lock reacted as if pole-axed after bumping shoulders with Pierre Schoeman resulting in a penalty crucially being reversed, but they know that they had opportunities to shift the balance their own way later in the game, not least when turning down a kickable penalty that could have put them 16-10 ahead and changed the dynamics of the final quarter.
“You’ve got to learn from it,” said the centre.
“A lot of us in our squad haven’t played a lot of Champions Cup, so being in games of that seriousness, especially knock-out rugby for the first time for most of us, was a great experience. In those games it comes down to small margins and it’s probably small margins that’s cost us the game. We were in control for the most part so for us it’s about learning that you need to be 100 per cent concentration so when we’re in that position again we can learn from it and go one better.”
For a team that has had little play-off experience, losing in the quarter-finals of the Challenge Cup and on their first appearance in the Pro14 quarter-finals last year, they have a quick opportunity to show that they are continuing to respond quickly to such lessons, as they have done in exceeding expectations in each of head coach Richard Cockerill’s first two seasons in charge.
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“We had our Munster review upstairs then Cockers said ‘scratch this, we’re going downstairs for a change of scenery for our Scarlets meeting’ because in order to make the play-offs we need three wins so it’s a huge few weeks for us as a team,” said Dean.
“We need to approach it with fresh minds, get the bodies freshened up but also take the learnings from last weekend into another big game this weekend.
“They will be raring to go as well with their Welsh internationalists back and looking to make the play-offs.The bigger games are hugely exciting to play in. That home support was the biggest I’ve played in as an Edinburgh player and it was really exciting personally and as a team we really enjoyed it but ultimately we’d have loved to have got the win in front of that support. That’s our focus for the next few weeks, just to get the wins. Every match is big now - there’s a lot riding on them.”
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