Blair won’t lay the blame for defeat with Immelman
BULLS 33 EDINBURGH 31
Edinburgh coach Mike Blair last night insisted he would not hold Henry Immelman responsible for an agonising defeat in South Africa after the fullback missed what would have been the matchwinning penalty with the last kick of the game.
The Scots side scored five tries against the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld, with Darcy Graham claiming a hat-trick to take his tally for the URC season to five in just two games. Charlie Savala and Damien Hoyland also touched down, but Mark Bennett missed two of his five conversion attempts and Immelman was off target with another penalty in addition to his last-gasp effort.
Edinburgh still took two losing bonus points from the URC game after being 15-0 down at one point in the first half. And Blair, pointing out that three of his first-choice kickers had been unavailable, said the outcome had been down to a lot more than just the one late kick.
“We were looking at that game exactly the same as if that kick went over or didn’t,” he said. “Henry is not a frontline kicker but he stood up and wanted to do that. It was a difficult kick, he didn’t make it and of course he is distraught about it.
“He had an excellent game apart from that. The game was lost in that last 10 minutes and not with that kick.
“We are missing some frontline kickers. Jaco (Van der Walt) would have been there, Blair Kinghorn would have been there, (Emiliano) Boffelli is away with Argentina.”
Kinghorn had been selected to start but was ruled out yesterday morning with a stomach bug. Van der Walt moved up from the bench to replace him, but he only lasted 10 minutes before going off with a head injury.
That was just one of many things that went wrong for Edinburgh in the first 20 minutes, which also saw co-captain Grant Gilchrist sent to the sinbin when the referee lost patience with the visitors after they had given away a string of penalties.
But scores by Savala and Graham got them back to just a point behind at the break. Then the second half was nip and tuck until, with 10 minutes left, Bennett converted Hoyland’s try to put his side in front for the first time.
Five minutes further on, Immelman could have turned a one-point lead into four but was off target. Then up stepped Morne Steyn – the man who scored the winning points for the Springboks in last year’s series against the British & Irish Lions – to put his team back in front with a 78th-minute penalty.
Immelman then had that last-gasp chance at glory, but it was not to be. Having just come up short against last year’s URC runners-up, Edinburgh next face the champions, the Stormers, on Saturday in Cape Town. And, although Blair accepted his team had had their flaws, he said they should be proud of their fightback.
“It was definitely a disappointing start, the first quarter of the game,” he said. “I didn’t think we were quite there mentally. That gave the Bulls a couple of easy ins into the game by not being switched on enough.
“On the positive side, the way we came back from that, and the guts, courage and skill we brought to the game, was absolutely outstanding.
“There was too much of a cushion at the start, but we got ourselves back into the position to win the game. It was an outstanding effort.”