Team to ‘lick’ their wounds after loss

THE Edinburgh coach Duncan Hodge admitted his team would have to lick the wounds of their sixth defeat in a row before turning their attention to Europe and La Rochelle.

A downbeat Hodge admitted his side needed to improve dramatically after never threatening the Scarlets in Llanelli, the only consolation being a reasonably clean bill of health from the Friday night game.

Back rower James Ritchie came off with a head injury assessment, prop Alan Dell another who left the field as a precaution, but generally Hodge was relieved with the medical report if little else from Parc y Scarlets.

“We will think about La Rochelle next week, but we will have to lick our wounds first,” admitted Hodge in Llanelli, after his team had conceded four tries within the first half hour on their way to a 26-10 defeat that leaves them ninth in the Guinness PRO12.

“We were a bit better in the second half. That first 15 minutes did rattle us, we lost our composure, our thought process and did not stick to anything we talked about – hard to explain.”

Edinburgh played like a team concentrating on La Rochelle, rather than focussing on the game in hand.

“I don’t think looking ahead to next week was an explanation at all, we were just poor on the night,” said Hodge. “It is a fresh competition next week so hopefully that will give us a lift, we are back at home against a good side, we need to pick ourselves up.

“It will all help a bit, we are possibly quite lucky just to have a quarter-final next week, something a bit different. There is nothing too major in terms of injuries, Jamie Ritchie had an HIA but I don’t think there’s anything too major.”

After losing five games in a row before facing the Scarlets, Hodge would have hoped the return of nine internationals from Six Nations duty would have helped a reversal of those fortunes – they will be hoping a change is as good as a rest next week.