Coach gives players credit for second-half turnaround
EDINBURGH head coach Mike Blair believes he gave his worst ever half-time team-talk during last night’s inter-city derby and attributed the capital side’s barn-storming start to the second period to the players’ ability to lead themselves.
The capital side led 13-6 at the break but had struggled to impose themselves during a cagey 40 minutes.
However, they came flying out of the blocks when the game restarted, with flanker Luke Crosbie leading the charge when he thundered down the left flank, riding three tackles to take play deep into Glasgow’s 22.
Magnus Bradbury scored the second of Edinburgh’s three tries, and the hosts never looked back as they reclaimed the 1872 Cup and, more importantly, booked their place in next year’s European Champions Cup.
“I said to Calum MacRae [Edinburgh’s defence coach] as we walked up to the technical box for the second half: ‘ That’s the worst half-time speech that I’ve given’,” revealed Blair after the game. “So, it shows that it had absolutely nothing to do with what happened in the second half because we came out and were excellent.
“The players started taking more responsibility in the halftime talk, which is something I’ve really tried to push. I want them running things.
“When I went in, they were already starting to problemsolve and talk about what was important in the second half. Everyone spoke. It wasn’t a rammy, but it wasn’t just one or two people talking.
“These games are difficult, they’re so often nip and tuck. But they’re also about momentum, and I felt that we stole momentum at the start of the second half.”
While the first half did not go as Blair had hoped, he was encouraged by the grit his team showed to not only stay in the contest but edge their way into a narrow lead.
“They had a lot of possession and pressure on us for the first 10 minutes or so and we defended really well and got the first points on the board,” he said.
“It was a little bit of a contrast to the Scotstoun game [against Glasgow in March], where they had a couple of turnover opportunities that they took. We probably created a couple more tonight, through our defensive pressure or errors from them, and we were able to get some points on the back of that. We were pretty clinical with our opportunities as well.”
Last night’s victory means
Edinburgh will head to Cape Town in a fortnight’s time to take on the DHL Stormers in the United Rugby Championship’s play-off quarter-finals. It is a daunting prospect against a side who are unbeaten in their last eight matches, and who got the better of mighty Leinster at the end of last month – but Blair insisted that he and his team believe they have nothing to fear.
“What a great tournament – playing a quarter-final in Cape Town against a really strong team, and it’s going to be a brilliant challenge for us,” he said.
Meanwhile, opposite number Danny Wilson said his team had only themselves to blame for the defeat.
“It was a disappointing result and performance,” he said. “The numbers that really stood out were our penalty count and our turnover rate. Especially the types of penalty we gave away, that was really unlike us. It’s an area we’ve improved a lot this season in terms of discipline, but that went back the other way in this match. It was a derby and our discipline was poor.
“When we did create some speed of ball and get in behind, we failed to execute. Our turnover rate was too high. It was just inaccuracy at times.
“Although results haven’t always gone our way away from home, some of our performances have been good, but tonight wasn’t one of our better ones.”
The defeat means Glasgow will play in the Challenge Cup next season – the second tier of European competition – and while they can take some consolation from having done enough to make it into the URC playoffs, few outside the camp will give them a snowball’s chance in hell of beating Leinster in Dublin.
“I look at our season as a whole and for about 80 per cent we were around the top four in the league, had some massive wins and played some good rugby,” Wilson concluded.
“Where we’ve fallen away is the tail end of the year. Five away games on the bounce has taken its toll.”