Trouncing of Toulon is proof that Edinburgh revolution is right on track, declares Scott
Matt Scott feels Edinburgh are in the midst of a revolution after their monumental victory over toulon on Saturday with confidence at an all-time high.
the home side put three-time champions toulon to the sword, with a stirring bonus-point performance.
Edinburgh have now taken six points from their two European matches, an outcome not many would have predicted in their first season back in Europe’s biggest competition.
Scott was influential in the centre both in attack — setting up the Henry Pyrgos try — and defensively by keeping the likes of Mathieu Bastareaud and Malakai Fekitoa at bay.
‘Being in the champions cup, you can look at it in one of two ways,’ said Scott. ‘It will be a heavy physical workload because we are playing some of the biggest teams in Europe, but on the flip side it helps us raise our confidence to play in these big games.
‘to come away with a losing bonus point in Montpellier, feeling frustrated, and then to put 40 points past toulon, you can’t overestimate how important that is for our confidence going forward.’
Richard cockerill’s men had struggled to close out games earlier in the season when they had created a big lead but their second-half display silenced any doubts over their defensive calibre.
‘We talked about blowing big leads, which was done a couple of times this season against Ulster and cheetahs,’ said Scott.
‘at half-time when we came in, it was a big test for us. We said: “this is our opportunity, 20-odd points ahead, can we maintain that and beat them by even more?”.
‘there was a point when it was a bit shaky and they were putting pressure on us, but we didn’t yield easily and kept them out for long periods. the defence was really good and we kicked on and scored a couple more. that was pleasing.
‘I think we were almost too passive and nice in the first six games of the season. It just shows the revolution we have had since the start of the season.’
a couple of missed chances early on suggested the game would be a repeat of the Montpellier fixture in which Edinburgh failed to capitalise in key moments. But once Ben toolis broke the deadlock in the first quarter, the capital side didn’t look back.
‘today, we made a few line breaks and instead of throwing the miracle ball we held on to it and built pressure,’ added Scott.
‘there were maybe a couple of chances in the first half we didn’t get seven points from, but we took three, six, nine and kept building the lead until eventually it was a mountain for them to climb.
‘that was one of our focuses — to keep the pressure on them and take it through five, six, seven phases and try to tire them out.’
toulon, it seemed, had a fairly simple game plan. Use their big men in the centre of the park and then release their flyers on the wing.
What they weren’t counting on was Edinburgh matching them up front. Unable to go route one, cockerill’s former team ran out of ideas and often were forced to look for the miracle pass resulting in Edinburgh’s bonus-point try.
‘We weren’t scared of testing their front five in the middle of the park,’ added Scott.
‘We talked about that a lot during the week. they have a lot of their big, big men in the centre of the park. It was the same for Henry’s (Pyrgos) try, with Blair (Kinghorn) running across their front row. I went through on a cut play.
‘Fair play to the coaches who prepared us well for that. If we could get that extra pass away rather than just bash through, we would be able to manipulate them. It’s nice when it comes off.
‘they obviously had to try some miracle passes to get out of their own 22, but Deano (chris Dean) got us a bonus point, as he did last week with a great tackle on (Louis) Picamoles. We’ve got him to thank for a couple of bonus points now.
‘We said during the week that our team spirit, teamwork and work rate would cause them a lot of problems, and it definitely did in the end.’
cockerill’s inside knowledge of his former club clearly came in handy, but despite toulon’s mammoth dip in form, the head coach believes the French club has the foundations to return to the big leagues.
He said: ‘It is a great club with some great people. there is a natural cycle. the successes they’ve had and the players they’ve had, that was a golden era. When those guys leave they are hard to replace.
‘toulon are a wealthy club, but Montpellier are wealthier and Racing are wealthier. they will rebuild and bring in good players. (Juan Martin) Fernandez-Lobbe and (Sebastien) tillous Borde are good young coaches, while collazo was outstanding at La Rochelle.
‘You need stability and you need to be able to regroup. But there is enough quality there. I would like a couple of their backs in our backline.’
compared to the glitz and glamour of toulon, Edinburgh are undeniably the minnows in this scenario. Yet Saturday saw 15 individual stars beaten by a unit.
‘It just shows what you can do if the sum of your parts is coached well and are motivated. Simple as that,’ added cockerill. ‘I thought we should have scored a couple of tries early on but we didn’t take them. Fortunately that didn’t come back to bite us. across the board it was pleasing that we created so many opportunities and had the mentality to keep going at them.’ SCORERS; Edinburgh: Tries — Toolis, Pyrgos, McInally, Dean. Cons — Van der Walt (3), Hickey. Pens — Van der Walt (4). Toulon: Tries — Taofifenua, Ikpefan. Cons — Belleau, Trinh-Duc.