EDINBURGH suffered their biggest defeat of the season so far last night after a bright start against Munster was eclipsed by a second-half collapse. And to make matters worse, winger Darcy Graham suffered a knee injury that could keep him on the sidelines for several weeks if
not more.
Three tries in the first half – the opening one by Graham himself – appeared to give Mike Blair’s team a decent chance of taking something from the game. But a Munster try on the brink of half-time signalled a major momentum change, and his team’s failure to score after the break was blamed by the head coach on a lack of concentration.
“There were just little bits where mentally we weren’t quite in it,” Blair said. “In the second half we looked panicky on the ball, we tried to force things and we lacked all composure. That team we put out on the pitch should have been in a position to win that game.
“I am really disappointed. We were not good enough. We have to be better – if we are not, things like tonight happen.”
Graham limped off after falling in a tackle, and Blair explained it was too early to tell how bad the damage was. “It’s something in or around his MCL [medial cruciate ligament], but I’m not too sure how bad it is at the moment. He was able to walk off, which was good, but we’ll have to wait and see.”
The curious thing about Edinburgh’s gradual loss of composure was how much of that quality they showed early on. They certainly got off to an ideal start, opening the scoring within two minutes through a Chris Dean try from a Luke Crosbie half-break. Blair Kinghorn added the conversion.
Just as curiously given their steady improvement, Munster were somewhat disjointed at first, and fell further behind when a loose pass from Joey Carbery was snatched out of the air by Graham around ten metres inside his own half. No-one got close to the winger as he ran in his 13th try of the season in just his tenth game. Kinghorn’s conversion attempt came back off the post.
Munster’s maul was beginning to be a profitable weapon, and when one was halted right on the home line, scrum-half Craig Casey darted through a gap that should not have been there. Carbery converted.
When Graham’s involvement ended, Jaco van der Walt came on at full-back with Wes Goosen switching to the wing. The enforced change did not seem to dent Edinburgh’s self-belief, and they stretched their lead shortly before half-time when Jamie Ritchie finished off in the right corner from a Kinghorn pass. The
stand-off again missed the conversion to leave his team ten points to the good, but that was reduced to three in the last move of the half when Rory Scannell scored off an Antoine
Frisch pass and Carbery added the two points.
Two minutes into the second half and Munster took the lead for the first time. Carbery made the score this time, finding Nash with a flat pass which allowed the winger to cruise through and touch down between the posts. The stand-off converted.
Munster continued to play at a high tempo and threatened to break through again at any minute. When they did, through a Gavin Coombes try from close range and another Carbery conversion, there was still half an hour to play.
But Edinburgh had buckled by that point, and did not look like having either the physical power or the mental fortitude to mount a recovery. The game lost much of its shape from then on, which played into the visitors’ hands.
Inside the final quarter a Carbery penalty extended their lead to 14 points. Edinburgh kept plugging away in search of a way back into the contest, but their efforts were increasingly disjointed. Munster, by contrast, remained self-possessed, and Carbery rounded off a fine night for them with a last-minute conversion and try.
