Edinburgh dig deep to become first URC Euro team to win in South Africa
TWO tries from Blair Kinghorn set up and sealed a fine away win for Edinburgh over a Sharks side who had been riding high on the back of four bonus-point victories on the bounce coming into this game.
It is the first time any European team has tasted victory in South Africa during this inaugural United Rugby Championship season and reestablishes Mike Blair’s men as serious contenders for a topfour finish in the league, which they need for a home draw in play-off quarter-finals.
The game was played in monsoon conditions at Kings Park in Durban and Edinburgh coped much better, despite being under the pump against a powerful home pack. The visitors defended heroically, while Kinghorn and scrum-half Ben Vellacott played a clever kicking game to control the territory battle.
There are four rounds of regular season matches still to play in this campaign, and Edinburgh face another South African challenge against the Emirates Lions in Johannesburg on Saturday.
“We said to ourselves that it was going to take something special to be the first northern hemisphere team to win in South Africa this year and when we were driving here with the rain coming down, I couldn’t decide if it was a good thing or a bad thing,” said head coach Blair.
“We’re obviously a team who like to move the ball around and we wanted to do that against a big Sharks pack, but we’d also spoken about how important it was going to be to show character and how important it is to us to play for the jersey, and this gave us an opportunity to show that.”
Edinburgh struggled to get a foothold in the game early on but took advantage when home centre Marius Louw was sent to the sin-bin for tackling Kinghorn in the air; it could easily have been a red as the Edinburgh stand-off was upended by the challenge and landed on his shoulder/neck area.
It took Edinburgh nine-anda-half minutes before they finally made the extra man count with Hamish Watson snaffling a half charged-down Sharks clearance and captain Mark Bennett jinking through a gap before the ball was sent to Kinghorn, who dummied and darted home.
Sharks dominated the remainder of the first half, but they could not make it count on
the scoreboard, and their only real achievement was to force a succession of penalties which eventually led to a yellow card for Edinburgh lock Pierce Phillips.
With a man advantage, Sharks continued to impose themselves at the start of the second half, and Springbok prop Ox Nche will have nightmares about his fumble with the line at his mercy.
The hosts did finally get their reward for all that pressure when Thomas Du Toit bustled over from close range, but Bosch missed the conversion, and Edinburgh struck right back.
Ben Muncaster showed fantastic pace and power to run a Sharks clearance back past four tacklers, then Kinghorn kept momentum going, before Vellacott’s pop-pass gave full-back Emiliano Boffelli the chance to finish in style.
With 10 minutes to go, Kinghorn sealed the win with his second try, showing impressive footballing skills on the waterlogged pitch to dribble a loose ball into the ingoal area and then pounce for the score.