‘We made life too easy for hosts,’ admits Vellacott

EDINBURGH captain Ben Vellacott said his side made life too easy for Stormers as they ran in seven tries to record a win as comfortable as it was emphatic in Cape Town.

“We let in some really soft tries,” the scrum-half said. “We gave Stormers the ‘in’ that we’d usually defend against. Stormers are a very attacking team and if you give them easy ins like we did, they are going to take them.”

Head coach Sean Everitt conceded there were few positives to take from a sobering afternoon.

“It’s always difficult to try and find a positive,” he said. “We managed to stay in the game when we weren’t really able to fire a shot from a territory or possession point of view. We got into the opposition 22 twice, we scored twice. That is a positive for me.”

He also praised his team’s scramble defence, without which the hosts would have been out of sight well before half time.

“The work rate and the effort of the players was really good,” he said. “The scramble defence, which people often don’t see, where the team worked hard to get back to put Stormers under pressure and make mistakes.”

But the negatives for the former Sharks coach will far outweigh the plus points as he prepares for a trip to Durban and a meeting with his former team on Saturday.

“We conceded four set-piece tries today and that is disappointing because that’s bread and butter stuff. We made it too easy for them,” he added.

Everitt admitted his side, particularly without most of their Scotland internationals, needed to be at their best to end Stormers’ unbeaten home record this campaign. They fell well short of that.

“Stormers have been winners and runners-up in the URC, and we’re not using that as an excuse for not performing better, but any team that plays the Stormers at the DHL Stadium has to be at the top of their game and we certainly weren’t that today.”

Edinburgh must bounce back in Durban if they are to keep their URC playoff ambitions alive. Aside from beating his former side, Everitt knows it is now a vital match.

“We’ve got six games left and every result counts. A bonus point today would have been vital considering how tight the log is, so it’s for us to get to Durban and get as many points as we can. It’s about how quickly we regroup and plot the way forward for Durban where the conditions are going to be a lot different and really tough, a lot more difficult than here.

“That’s going to be really important for this group, because we have the ability to finish in the top four, the top eight.”