Defeat dents Edinburgh Euro bid but Cockerill pledges to battle on
CHAMPIONS CUP
EDINBURGH 8
LA ROCHELLE 13
Edinburgh face an uphill battle to qualify for the quarterfinals of the Champions Cup after losing to La Rochelle on Saturday night, but Richard Cockerill has no intention of throwing in the towel.
The head coach and his squad took some consolation from the fact that they were well short of their best form against the French league leaders yet stayed in contention throughout to glean a bonus point from the 8-13 loss at BT Murrayfield. With the competition’s new format consisting of just four games per club in the pool stage, Edinburgh will need to win at Sale Sharks this coming Saturday to keep their chances of reaching the last eight alive, but they will take heart from the encouraging away record they have enjoyed in the competition in recent seasons. And, although some coaches have taken the attitude that one defeat is enough to end their hopes, Cockerill insists he will fight on.
“It's a great competition and we respect the competition,” he said after a Blair Kinghorn try and a penalty from Jacovander Walt kept his team within the margin needed for a losing bonus. “The only way to get better is to play tonight and throw it out there, and then do the same next week, because that's how you learn.
We’re going to Manchester as fully loaded as we can be, and to do as well as possible.
“It's sport, so anything can happen, and although we weren' t quite good enough on Saturday there was lots of fight and battle in the team. We didn't play as well as we know we can – we got put under pressure, which didn't help, but all credit to La Rochelle for that. But despite being under a lot of pressure we defended very well, we stood up, stayed in the battle and gave ourselves an opportunity to potentially get more out of the game.”
Edinburgh went behind to a penalty, then conceded a try in either half, with the second being the product of defensive dithering. However, they also had two try-saving tackle sin the first half, from Bill Mata and Stuart Mcinally, and the fact they were still in contention at the close was testament to their perseverance against opponents who frequently threatened to overrun them.
Hamish Watson, one of 11 Scotland internationals playing his first game for the team after the Autumn Nations Cup, accepted Edinburgh’s attack would have to be consistently sharper against Sale than it had been on Saturday.
“When we had the ball against La Rochelle we looked really good ,” he said .“We scored a try when we went through the phases and we won penalties.
“The fluidity has to be better. We have to attack better – there were a few opportunities that went as tray. Hopefully after another week together as a team we’ ll be better against Sale.”
Edinburgh play S ale again in the New Year, at home this time, before completing the pool stage with a visit to La Rochelle .“All three games are must-wins now if we want to stay in the main competition,” Watson added. “We’ll take a bit of confidence from Saturday night. We’ve lost by five points and we know we’ve been nowhere near our best. ”