Racing scars
Cockerill admits his team were wildly overmatched
RICHARD COCKERILL admitted his Edinburgh side got exactly what they deserved as they were knocked out the Champions Cup by rampant Racing 92.
Racing were without the suspended Finn Russell but still had far too much class for their opponents.
Head coach Cockerill said: “The scoreboard doesn’t lie, does it? We started the game well and were a bit unlucky not to score early on but if you’re not accurate and physically drop off, then you get punished.
“They’ve got some real threat, some real physicality in that pack, and we just couldn’t cope with it.
“If you don’t get it right against this type of opposition, they’re more than capable of scoring very quickly.
“They scored four very quick tries at the end.
“The score looks ugly. Does it represent the game? Maybe not, but I’m not going to shy away from the result.
“The reality is we just weren’t good enough to cope with their physicality.”
Edinburgh gave as good as they got during the opening 20 minutes and had a couple of try-scoring opportunities but failed to capitalise.
Duhan van der Merwe’s poor pass to Damien Hoyland killed an overlap on the right, then a knock-on by Jamie Ritchie saw a James Johnstone try chalked off.
They scored their only points through a Blair Kinghorn penalty, but Racing went 20-3 up by the break thanks to tries from hooker Camille Chat and scrum-half Maxime Machenaud, plus two penalties and two conversions from Machenaud.
Racing turned on the style after the interval, and five more tries from No.8
Jordan Joseph, prop Guram Gogichashvili, winger Teddy Thomas (twice) and replacement centre Francois Trinh-Duc brought up the half century for the hosts. Cockerill stressed that there needs to be some realism in Edinburgh’s expectations. He said: “You’re talking about the very top end of European rugby and I’d say that we’re a bit of a way off from being genuine contenders to win the European Cup. “Let’s not pretend we were one of the favourites to win it. “I don’t expect to get beaten by the score we got beaten by today, but it happens and you have to manage it and get on with it. “Racing are as good as Test-match teams.”