Edinburgh v Leinster, 4 September

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Edinburgh Rugby v Leinster Rugby
Friday 4 September 2015
KO: 19:35
Meggetland

Live on BBC Alba and TG4

Referee: Peter Fitzgibbon (IRFU, 61st competition game)
Assistant Referees: Sam Grove-White, Mike Adamson (both SRU)
Citing Commissioner: John Kirk (SRU)
TMO: Jim Yuille (SRU)

A. Head to Head

24 Played 24
9 Wins 15
15 Losses 9
0 Draws 0
53 Tries 70
33 Conversions 54
44 Penalties 58
2 Drop Goals 3
469 Points 641

B. Form

Fri 31 Oct 2014
Leinster Rugby 33 - 8 Edinburgh Rugby

Sat 16 May 2015
Edinburgh Rugby 23 - 36 Leinster Rugby

C. Teams

Edinburgh Rugby

15 Jack Cuthbert
14 Dougie Fife
13 Chris Dean
12 Sam Beard
11 Damien Hoyland
10 Phil Burleigh
9 Nathan Fowles

1 Rory Sutherland
2 Neil Cochrane
3 John Andress
4 Anton Bresler
5 Ben Toolis
6 Cornell Du Preez
7 Roddy Grant (c)
8 Nasi Manu

16 George Turner
17 Allan Dell
18 Simon Berghan
19 Fraser McKenzie
20 Hamish Watson
21 Sean Kennedy
22 Greig Tonks
23 James Johnstone

Leinster Rugby

15. Isa Nacewa
14. Fergus McFadden
13. Ben Te'o
12. Noel Reid
11. Darragh Fanning
10. Cathal Marsh
9. Luke McGrath

1. Michael Bent
2. Aaron Dundon
3. Jamie Hagan
4. Tom Denton
5. Mike McCarthy
6. Kevin McLaughlin CAPTAIN
7. Dan Leavy
8. Jack Conan

16. Bryan Byrne
17. Peter Dooley
18. Royce Burke-Flynn
19. Ross Molony
20. Dominic Ryan
21. Isaac Boss
22. Ross Byrne
23. Garry Ringrose

Isa Returns! (bowing deeply before my Buddesqidised Isa Altar)

Oh Great One, you heard my pleading and returned to bring renewed life to the alleys and bespoke townhouses of D4.

Do not fail us,

Your Obedient Servant, Fly.


I hope Isa has done the right thing. He left a Saint the first time. I hope he won't have downgraded his CV by the time he leaves again.....

Apparently Tonks had been training with Scotland all week as cover for Maitland, so that probably explains why he's on the bench.

RDW_Scotland wrote:Apparently Tonks had been training with Scotland all week as cover for Maitland, so that probably explains why he's on the bench.

Jeez, so Maitland is actually straight off the treatment table! Doesn't show a huge amount of confidence that he's 100%.

I think the best word to describe our WC preparations is chaotic!

Pure aside, but Leinster related. Matt O'Connor has become the attack coach for the Queensland Reds. Matt O'Connor and attack are two things that don't go together. Best of luck to him.

We'll probably see was Matt O'Connor's hand being messed with a bit though too. Players seemed absolutely well off any kind of form needed to compete in the Pro12 - sometimes to the extent that you found yourself saying: 'this stuff is even too bad to be coached - or be a coaching issue' Players were doing a lot of phoning-in and I guess if Queensland Reds listened to MOC, they possibly came to the conclusion that he's worth a shot given the conditions he was under at Leinster.

We'll see.

Good defence to start with from Edinburgh

Leinster looking sharp in attack - lightning fast ball from the rucks

Lovely break from Dean - shame he forced the offload

Why have leinster their props the other way around? Thats odd.

Nasi Manu flinging himself about to good effect!

Cuthbet like a man wearing mittens at the moment

We've done more offloads this game than the last 2 seasons combined!

Edinburgh looking good.. until it's Cuthbert's turn to (try to) catch the ball.

Manu and Burleigh linking up very well!

Massive step up in ambition from Edinburgh this season - silly mistakes letting us down just now though.

John Beattie Snr talks some amount of pish

Edinburgh look good so far. Sooner or later the try should come

Manu looks real class

Lots of ruck penalties - killing us just now

Promising signs, just not getting the final output

Fowles looks a prospect as well. Lightning quick service

That was an awful tackle - he flung him round by his neck! that would have been a yellow if it went to TMO I reckon

Well Edinburgh had much more of that half but it is only 3-3 - can see Leinster sneaking this if we don't manage to pull away a lead

Absolutely gutted for Chris going off, he was desperate to get a run of games while the WC was on. Think overall we look good, manu du preez and grant are a balanced back row. Both 2nd rows are also playing very well. Shame about Cuthbert

CraigS1874 wrote:Absolutely gutted for Chris going off, he was desperate to get a run of games while the WC was on. Think overall we look good, manu du preez and grant are a balanced back row. Both 2nd rows are also playing very well. Shame about Cuthbert

He was looking very sharp too.

Hopefully it is just precautionary

Where did that rain come from?? Typical Scotland!

No idea why he went to the TMO for that, especially in comparison to the previous high tackle one

These chop tackles should be allowed imo, no problem with that.

The spirit of Phil Godman lives on

We're going to rue these misses I think

Can't help but feel Burleigh is wasted at 10

Brilliant from du Preez

Desperately needed that - we've dominated the last 40 minutes

Back to classic edinburgh. Failing to back up a score & conceding soon after

Think we've made poor decisions from penalties - not convinced going for goal is the best idea here.

And there we go - he was not even close!

Rugby is all about sustainable pressure - very bad call to kick at goal there

Brilliant play from Watson - no one was putting him down!

Ffs Tonks!

Restarts. Bloody restarts. FFS

And yet again we mess up straight from getting points!

Not sure what that decision was for though

Leinster have had to do bugger all for their points this game

Clear yellow - good call

Wassa score?

16-9 Edinburgh, conversion to come!

Edinburgh just scored a great try

MOTM on first appearance, brilliant Manu!

Hoyland just scored again for 16-9 at full time

Plenty of positives from that. Leinster never really looked like scoring a try and if Edinburgh can get that level or possession and territory every week they won't lose many

Well we got there in the end.
Leinster must be delighted to come away with a point after being so dominated

Fantastic win Edinburgh, but we made life very difficult! Should have been a comfortable win but just too many mistakes. Leinster offered very little.

Final note on Manu - what a signing he's looking!

Sam hc as a reliable goal kicker is needed for this team, keep Burleigh at 10 play tonks at 15

Good win though

Tonks was poor when he came on - Burleigh looked far more assured

Cornell, I love that guy.

Manu seems like a cracking player and good for Hoyland to get a couple of tries.

Still not sure on Burleigh at 10, his kicking from hand is questionable.

Nice to get the win.

[quote="EWT Spoons"]

Still not sure on Burleigh at 10, his kicking from hand is questionable.
/quote]

Interesting you say that - I think his kicking is excellent! Thought he did well tonight

It can be, don't get me wrong, at times his kicking can be superb, but more often than not he kicks it too long or straight out.

I agree with rdw, thought Burleigh was good. Hopefully we get a good run and I hope for a top 6 finish by the end of the season