Blair admits it was Edinburgh’s dismal first half that really caused alarm bells
EDINBURGH’S pre-season opener was curtailed by an emergency warning but head coach Mike Blair admits the real cause for alarm was their first-half performance.
The capital side were missing many of their established stars but that still didn’t excuse the ease with which London Scottish burst through unopposed to land four scores before the break.
The Championship strugglers added two more tries in the second period to lead 34-26 when the match was abandoned six minutes from time after a supporter accidentally triggered a fire alarm.
Blair felt an element of rustiness was always to be expected but also acknowledged that his team would need to defend far better than they showed for long spells on Friday night.
‘I’m certainly disappointed and frustrated,’ said the head coach. ‘We felt we were in a good place going into the game and that we’d stretched the guys a lot during pre-season with the training we’ve been doing.
‘I thought at times we lacked a little bit of composure, and whether that was through having not played in a while, or guys trying to push their individual cases rather than making decisions for the benefit of the team, I’m not too sure.
‘There’s lots of stuff to come out of that which is going to make us better going into the season and I guess that’s what the point of pre-season is.
‘But, at the same time, you don’t want to lose 34 points at home. We should have enough in the tank to beat a team who are playing in the Championship. They played well but we’ve got to have high expectations of what we’re trying to do, and even if you take the scoreline out of it, we didn’t show our true selves.
‘There were too many errors. We were overcommitting at breakdowns. We just lacked a bit of sharpness and there is no doubt that we’re going to be a lot better for it.’
Edinburgh round off their pre-season campaign away to Benetton on Friday and Blair hoped this performance would serve as a wake-up call.
‘In a sick kind of way, I’m pleased that we have had this (poor performance) at this stage because it really resets things,’ he added.
‘There is a lot of positive noises coming out of the club about some of the environment and culture stuff, and rightly so.
‘But if you don’t turn up at the weekend and bring physicality in order to look after the ball, then you are not going to win rugby matches, and that’s what we’re here to do.
‘With that game, we definitely wanted to win it, and we’re disappointed that the scoreline was like that at that point.
‘But at the same time if that means we really hit our straps at the start of the season when the games count, then so be it.’