It’s a Vale of tears.. even for victorious Edinburgh
DESPITE their bonus point win, Edinburgh’s director of rugby, Richard Cockerill, was scathing of Dragons’ decision to play this fixture at Ebbw Vale.
In an effort to drum up support, struggling Dragons opted to visit their North Gwent outpost but a night fixture in February seemed a strange choice.
On a bitterly cold evening, Edinburgh changed in the cricket pavilion and had such a long trek to the pitch that the half-time interval was extended by five minutes in order that they could complete their journey.
Cockerill said: “I don’t think it’s a good advert for the PRO14 competition when you have facilities like this and then have to walk over a hundred metres to get to the pitch.”
However the change of venue didn’t produce any change in fortune for the hapless Dragons, who have now gone 34 games without a win away from Rodney Parade, with their last success being at Treviso as far back as March 2015.
They also haven’t won a league game since September and despite this season’s WRU takeover, they appear to be going backwards in terms of both performance and results.
After last week’s miserable home defeat against Treviso, a positive reaction was expected but for the first 50 minutes, they were inept and any form of score looked unlikely until the introduction of Ollie Griffiths and Har-
rison Keddie gave them some impetus.
Dragons, captain, Lewis Evans said: “It’s disappointing because they weren’t anything special but they were more clinical, shaded the collisions and did the simple things well.”
Edinburgh began with five minutes of excellent ball retention before taking the lead with a penalty from Sam Hidalgo-Clyne.
The Scots then proceeded to dominate the first half with Bill Mata, Magnus Bradbury and Neil Cochrane, the protagonists in keeping the hosts firmly on the back foot.
Cochrane finished off a driving lineout for them to lead 10-0 at the interval before a welltimed pass from Jaco van der Walt created a try for Chris Dean.
Dragons looked down and out but they rallied with two tries from Rynard Landman, the first from a driving lineout and the second thanks to a superb break from Charlie Davies.
A close finish seemed a possibility but Edinburgh soon regrouped with tries from Duncan Weir and Chris Fenton emphasising their superiority.
Cockerill said: “It was a difficult place to come and get five points against a decent side but our tempo was really good and we deserved the win.”