The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Cockerill looks to seal play-offs spot by beating Glasgow
EDINBURGH SCARLETS 52 14
Richard Cockerill is eyeing a win over Glasgow in a fortnight to cement Edinburgh’s place in the play-offs.
The club needs just a single point from its final game of the Pro14 season to be sure of a place in the play-offs, if Ulster win their two remaining games with a bonus point.
An impressive 52-14 win over champions Scarlets put two weeks of disappointment behind Edinburgh to put them within reach of cementing third place in Conference B, a remarkable achievement in Cockerill’s first season in charge – but he is not ready to sit back just yet.
“We have Glasgow in a couple of weeks and we want to win that game because we want to beat Glasgow, and that will put us right in the play-offs,” he said.
“We still have work to do. Ulster can still mathematically reach us. Thankfully we now play teams a lot better than us and we tend to turn up and perform better against them.”
Cockerill’s side scored four early tries and secured a crucial bonus point within 25 minutes before going on to claim an impressive win against Scarlets on Saturday
Blair Kinghorn, Duhan van der Merwe, Sam Hidalgo-Clyne and Magnus Bradbury all crossed the whitewash in the first half.
Cockerill had ramped up the pressure on his players and called for them to respond to a disappointing few weeks with a performance here.
They responded magnificently, playing with a freedom and pace that had been so absent in recent weeks.
The lively HidalgoClyne eased any lingering nerves in the second half with a sharp break from the base of a scrum inside his own half and a smart kick bounced nicely for Van der Merwe to score his second, before Luke Crosbie finished off a slick team move for Edinburgh’s sixth try.
Mark Bennett and Nathan Fowles got in on the act late on as Edinburgh ran riot against last season’s champions.