Bradbury states case for French inclusion
BLINDSIDE Magnus Bradbury put in a cracking performance after four months out to help Edinburgh keep their PRO14 play-off hopes well and truly alive with this bonus point win to stay second in Conference B.
The Dragons led at halftime, but the home side took control at Murrayfield in the second 40 minutes.
Bradbury’s return from shoulder surgery – and subsequent positive showing – could mean he gets back into the Scotland squad for Saturday’s trip to France.
Edinburgh head coach Richard Cockerill said: “We said before this game that we had three cup finals to play during the Six Nations period.
“We upped our game after the break to win this first one and now we need to focus on Cardiff coming up the road on Saturday.”
Edinburgh took an early lead when Chris Dean and Bill Mat set centre James Johnstone up for a converted try but the Dragons were back on terms just three minutes later when centre Tyler Morgan crashed over.
A second Johnstone try, again converted by fly-half Jaco van der Walt, put Edinburgh 14-7 to the good after a quarter of an hour but Morgan wasn’t to be outdone and he took an intercept to bag his second try three minutes later.
Josh Lewis’ second conversion made it 14-14 after a breathless opening quarter and his penalty before halftime gave the Dragons their first lead of the match.
Edinburgh looked far more composed after the break though and, after a van der Walt penalty made it 17-17 with a penalty in the 55th minute, they took control.
Their third try came when Bradbury went over under the posts with the conversion making it 25-17.
They could sense the Dragons were tiring and when powerful winger Duhan van der Merwe went through a couple of tackles for the bonus point try, the game was over in the 68th minute.
With time running out van der Merwe added his second in the corner and it was job done for the home side, but they know they will have to be sharper against the Blues next time out.
Dragons head coach Ceri Jones said: “It was a good performance for 60 minutes, but unfortunately it wasn’t an 80 minute performance, which was our downfall.
“We will look to take the positives from it, but we lacked a little bit of control just after half-time when we overplayed a bit which cost us in the long run.”