Sarries seems to be the harshest word
Blair proud despite narrow loss
MIKE BLAIR believes his Edinburgh team are still in the mix for the Champions Cup knockout stages despite just falling short in their opening pool game.
A brilliant kicking display by Emiliano Boffelli kept the Gunners in the hunt and they were never behind to Saracens in the first half.
However, ultimately the Argentine’s 16 points with the boot – plus tries from Luan de Bruin and Wes Goosen – were not enough.
With just a losing bonus point to show for their efforts, Edinburgh likely now need a win at home to Castres on Saturday to stay in contention for a place in the last 16.
Head coach Blair said: “A point at Saracens isn’t too bad an outcome.
“Obviously we wanted to win but we’ve got a point now.
“Someone told me that last year a win and a draw from the four pool games got them through to the last 16.
“I’m really proud of the performance. So much of what we did was good.
“It’s easy to look at a couple of things that didn’t go right – we did hand the momentum to Saracens in the second half – but I want to focus on what we did well.
“Despite the issues we had with a couple of lineouts, despite two yellow cards, we were right in that game against a team that will go well in this tournament and who are nine from nine in their domestic league.
“I’m really proud of lots of stuff but there’s also that little itch in me. We could’ve done a little bit more, probably more from a smarts point of view than an effort one.
“Now we’ve got Castres at home. They’re a big, physical team, it’s a six-day turnaround for us and there’s a really big motivation for us to get a win at the DAM Health.”
It was de Bruin who opened the scoring from close range. But Premiership side Sarries hit back through England international Elliot Daly before two mighty Boffelli penalties made it 13-6 to Blair’s boys.
Saracens hit back just before the break with a Ben Earl, albeit Boffelli had the last word in the half with a third penalty that gave his side a 16-12 lead at the break.
The home team took the lead when a clever kick through by Daly was finished off by Alex Lewington.
Boffelli put Edinburgh back in front but then two Farrell
penalties gave Saracens some breathing space.
A break by Edinburgh sub Damian Hoyland just failed to produce a score, then at the other end Tom Woolstencroft finished off.
That looked like the end of the game at 30-19 but Edinburgh hit back and scored through Goosen, even though Stuart McInally was in the sin-bin by then for a team offence.
WP Nel joined him for a dangerous tackle and for a couple of minutes Edinburgh were down to 13 men.
They still kept fighting right to the death but could not get the score they needed to turn a single point for a narrow loss into four for a win.