Game of patience
Defeated Edinburgh need time to bounce back, says Solomons
MUNSTER 34
EDINBURGH 23
EDINBURGH head coach Alan Solomons last night appealed to fans t o be patient after his side crashed to a RaboDirect Pro12 opening day defeat to Munster in Cork.
The 63yearold South African said it would take ‘at least two months’ to try to get the ailing capital club back on track after he watched them fall to a rampant Irish outfit that ran in five tries in what was his first competitive match in charge.
The manner of the Saturday night defeat preyed on his mind so much that he was in at Murrayfield at seven o’clock yesterday morning — just six hours after returning from Ireland to pore over a tape of the game.
His backroom staff were also denied a lazy Sunday and ordered to report for a debriefing three hours later as Solomons tried to find a solution to the failings he saw on display at Musgrave Park.
Fortified by strong coffee, the Edinburgh coaching team replayed the video nasty that showed how a mixture of individual errors, poor firsthalf tackling and indiscipline contributed to the defeat.
‘We did ourselves no favours at times against Munster,’ said Solomons ( below), who only took over as Edinburgh head coach a month ago, after three years as director of rugby at the Southern Kings in South Africa.
‘ I saw some positives, but also a lot of negatives in that performance, and there is not going to be a quick fix.
‘It is going to take us a couple of months to fix things and get Edinburgh at least heading in the right direction, so I would ask the fans to be patient.
‘Just now, it feels like we are still trying to sort things out as you would do during pre season, but t he problem is time is not on our side as we have already started our league campaign.’
Solomons i s well aware of the enormity of the challenge in front of him, but added: ‘I always knew I had a big task on my hands to turn things around and the defeat to Munster has just reemphasised that to me. ‘Two of the Munster tries came from errors we made from restarts and, on top of that, in the first half we simply failed to stop their momentum, which wasn’t good enough.
‘What did encourage me was that although we were 266 down at halftime, we came out and scored 17 points in the second half and they only got 12.’
Solomons would have been frustrated that Edinburgh started very well but then let themselves be bullied up front before drifting out of things in the first half.
Piers Francis had given them the lead with a penalty after 10 minutes before Munster converted their first try. Ian Keatley played a sublime pass to Denis Hurley and although the TMO ruled he had touched the ball down in the corner, video replays were inconclusive.
Ronan O’Mahony then tripped over the ball and inadvertently backheeled it into the arms of James Coughlan, who ran in to score Munster’s second. A Francis penalty was then cancelled out by one from Keatley, before Jones took out Coughlan and was yellow carded.
James Cronin went over for a third try to make it 266 at halftime.
Edinburgh came out fighting after the break and scored a converted try through Ni c k de Luca. But Munster then won a lineout on the Edinburgh 22yard line and Ivan Dineen went on to score their fourth try.
JJ Hanrahan got their fifth before Jones mostly made up for his yellow card with a fine try that was converted by replacement Harry Leonard.
While Edinburgh were put to the sword i n Cork, Glasgow Warriors restored some Scottish pride with a battling 2215 win over Cardiff Blues at Scotstoun in their opening game 24 hours earlier, thanks to a try from Tommy Seymour and a conversion and penalty from Ruaridh Jackson.