Edinburgh's first of two pre-season matches ended in a fairly substantial defeat, but there were at least some extenuating circumstances.
When the home team had their strongest line-up on the pitch in the first half, they were clearly the better side, and went in at the break 19-7 ahead. Against a team who had played two previous warm-up games, and have only three World Cup absentees compared to Edinburgh’s 15, that was a decent result.
At half-time, however, wholesale changes were made, and a far less experienced team was unable to stay on terms against a Connacht side who were slicker and sharper. New senior coach Sean Everitt would clearly have hoped for a winning debut, but he was nonetheless reasonably encouraged by some aspects of the evening.
“The first 40 was good,” he said. “I thought the guys were really physical and abrasive in the tackle, and I think there has been a remarkable improvement in our defence. And when we had opportunities in attack we grabbed them with both hands.
“You’re always going to be under pressure when you make all these changes in the second half. But we had to give everyone an opportunity to see what they’ve got, and some of the youngsters put their hands up in the second half.”
Connacht opened the scoring when lock forward Joe Joyce finished off from close range, and man of the match JJ Hanrahan added the first of his five successful conversions, only missing the last couple.
Edinburgh had hardly got out of their own half up to that point, but in the next 20 minutes they took control of the game to open up a 19-7 lead. Hooker Adam McBurney got the first try of the night for the home side, scoring by the left corner flag after a long attack, then winger Wes Goosen came into midfield and raced through to collect a short ball and touch down by the posts for the second. Cammy Scott converted that score, then made the third try himself for Mark Bennett before adding another two points to put his side 12 points ahead.
But that was as good as it would get for Edinburgh. Connacht pulled one score back through Andrew Smith within a minute of the restart, then Jordan Duggan and Tom Farrell added two more.
That put the game out of Edinburgh’s grasp, and Connacht added three more tries in the last quarter-hour from Shamus Hurley-Langton, David Hawkshaw and Shayne Bolton.
Edinburgh’s Charlie Savala was sent to the sinbin inside the last 10 minutes as the referee lost patience with the home side’s repeated offending.
Scorers:
Edinburgh: Tries: McBurney, Goosen, Bennett. Cons: Scott 2.
Connacht: Tries: Joyce, Smith, Duggan, Farrell, Hurley-Langton, Hawkshaw, Bolton. Cons: Hanrahan 5.
Edinburgh: N Sweeney; R McCann, M Bennett (captain), M Currie, W Goosen; C Scott, C Shiel; B Venter, A McBurney, A Williams, G Young, J Hodgson, T Dodd, C Boyle, C Neild. Replacements: P Harrison, R Hislop, M Jones, R Bratton, C Miller, E McVie, A Scopes, L McConnell, Freddie Douglas, T Currie, S Steele, C Savala, J Edmunds, C Dean, M Davidson, Finn Douglas, L Richman.
Connacht: J Porch; S Bolton, T Farrell, C Forde, A Smith; J Hanrahan, C Reilly; D Buckley, D Heffernan, J Aungier, D Murray, J Joyce, S Hurley-Langton, C Oliver (captain), P Boyle. Replacements: D Tierney-Martin, J Duggan, D Robertson-McCoy, O Dowling, N Murray, M McDonald, D Hawkshaw, S O’Brien, B Ralston, L McNamara.
Yellow card: Edinburgh: Savala 72.
Referee: Ian Kenny.
