The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Edinburgh on brink of European qualification
Edinburgh coach lauds his players, but urges them to keep up great work
TOULON 17 EDINBURGH 28
Richard Cockerill wants his players to go all out for a home quarter-final in the Heineken Champions Cup when they face Montpellier at Murrayfield on Friday night.
Edinburgh’s 28-17 win in Toulon made them only the third team to beat the three-time champions at Stade Felix Mayol in the Champions Cup after Saracens and Newcastle Falcons. It also equalled their best run in the tournament of four wins in a row.
Cockerill’s side hit back after conceding a try in the second minute of the game and dominated territory and possession throughout to make it four wins in a row and set up a winner-takesall sixth round clash in the Scottish capital with Montpellier on Friday.
Tries from Guilhem Guirado and Facundo Isa gave the hosts a 12-8 halftime lead after Darcy Graham replied with a fine finish. However, tries from Blair Kinghorn and James Johnstone, after an outrageous offload from Bill Mata, put Edinburgh clear and they held out despite Julian Savea’s late score.
“Credit to the players, we came with a plan and we knew we had to stick to it. We invited them into our half in the firsthalf and they punished us,” said Cockerill.
“But the way we controlled the game and played in the second half was as good as we have played. At half-time we just told them not to give any silly penalties away and to control the ball, because we had coughed up the ball a lot in the first-half.
“We knew that if we put them under pressure we would have opportunities. To be fair to the lads, they took them and I thought we controlled the second half pretty much from start to finish.
“They should take a huge amount of pride out of what they have done today and it puts us in a great position to qualify. This is a club that is growing slowly.
“We haven’t qualified yet and I want to win on Friday and try to get a home quarter-final. We have given ourselves the chance to do that and, hopefully, we will have a big crowd at Murrayfield.
“We will enjoy tonight and the feeling of winning here. We still have a lot to do and we need to keep on improving.
“We have got a good work ethic. We’ll enjoy this for 24 hours, but we will be back in on Monday morning. We will do everything we can to win.”
Defeat for Toulon means they cannot now qualify from Pool 5, although Wales and Lions scrum half Rhys Webb says they will still be going all out when they head to Newcastle Falcons for their final pool match this weekend.
“To beat a team like Edinburgh you have to play for the full 80 minutes and we didn’t do that,” admitted Webb.
“We aren’t far away. It is just individual errors at crucial moments, which shouldn’t be happening at this level of the game, that are letting us down.
“We need to take a good look at ourselves and fix them pretty quickly, otherwise it is going to be an embarrassing season for us. We have let the fans down and, more importantly, we have let ourselves down.
“We know we can’t go through in this competition now, so we’ve got to come together next week in Newcastle and put in a good performance. The week after that we’ve got Stade Francais in the Top 14 and we need to get into the top six, so every game is crucial.”