An Ubhal As Airde (The Highest Apple)
By Big Al
January 24 2012
With our Heineken Cup campaign over for this season, for many the trip to Edinburgh is more about the craic then the match, but then again that is often the case with our European adventures - how often do we return saying "great weekend - shame about the rugby"
January 24 2012
With our Heineken Cup campaign over for this season, for many the trip to Edinburgh is more about the craic then the match, but then again that is often the case with our European adventures - how often do we return saying "great weekend - shame about the rugby"
The weekend started at a fairly civilised 9:30-ish on the Saturday morning at the 3Gs, and off the Heathrow for a lunchtime flight up to Edinburgh. Giving the pandas a miss, I opted for a wander around some of the sights of Edinburgh before finding my way to Biddy Mulligan's for a pint or 2......
After a leisurely breakfast, it is a little more sightseeing on Sunday morning.
Then off to Murrayfield for the match. Even though we cannot sneak into the Amlin Cup, there is still pride to play for and finishing third in our pool is better than fourth. As Cardiff are expected to beat Racing Metro, Edinburgh are looking for a 5 pointer to have a realistic chance of topping the group, so if we are prepared to throw a bit of caution to the wind, it could make for an entertaining match.
The Irish side is as expected, but Edinburgh have a few late changes, Chris Paterson, Nick De Luca and David Denton are not present, it appears Paterson's and Denton's withdrawals occurred during the warm-up - maybe they need to tone down the warm-up routines.
Edinburgh kick off, Topsy Ojo gathers and kicks the ball back to Edinburgh who keep the ball in hand and gradually make progress into our half. For the first 5 minutes it is all Edinburgh possession in our half, but no real threat, a penalty for holding on allows us to clear. Big Bob claims the resulting line-out and we spend some time in the Edinburgh half, Edinburgh knock-on and are then pinged at the scrum and Adrian Jarvis is successful with the penalty, 3-0 Irish after 9 minutes.
Topsy gathers the restart and clears back into the Edinburgh half, Edinburgh keep the ball in hand and make progress into our half - a kick through from Greig Laidlaw is touched down by Tim Visser, Laidlaw converts and Edinburgh lead 7-3 after 12 minutes.
Following the restart, possession changes hands a few times in midfield until Edinburgh are awarded a penalty from a scrum and clear towards the Irish 22. Again Edinburgh retain possession through a number of phases and slowly progress into our 22. An Edinburgh scrum results in the Edinburgh penalty in front of the posts and Laidlaw extends the lead to 10-3 after 21 minutes.
Jarvis with the restart gives the ball enough air for Matt Garvey to get in position to claim possession and it is our turn to go through a few phases and progress into the Edinburgh 22. An Irish penalty for an Edinburgh hand being where it shouldn't be, Jarvis is again successful with the kick and Edinburgh's lead is reduced to 10-6 after 23 minutes.
Topsy again gathers the restart, but this time keeps the ball in hand for a few phases until Jarvis clears. Edinburgh are pinged for holding on a few metres into the Irish half, and from the penalty it is an Irish line-out on the Edinburgh 10m line. We keep the ball through a number of phases making slow progress, but are eventually turned over and Edinburgh clear their lines. Topsy gathers and passes to Delon, but his kick goes out on the full, so Edinburgh have a line-out just inside the Irish half.
On 31 minutes, Edinburgh win a penalty on our 22 and Laidlaw restores the 7 point lead, 13-6.
Edinburgh once again keep possession through the phases and threaten our try line, resolute defending just about keeps them at bay. The ball is dropped, but goes backwards and then moved wide for Jim Thompson to score in the corner, Laidlaw converts and Edinburgh lead 20-6 after 37 minutes.
Brian Blaney replaces James Buckland. And that is it for the first half.
Jarvis gets the second half under way - not too much to report from the early exchanges, Edinburgh having slightly more possession, but neither side creating anything.
Faan Rautenbach replaces Leo Halavatau after 46 minutes, Gilding replaces Cross for Edinburgh.
We have good possession in the Edinburgh half, a good run from Delon gets us to the 5m line, and we go through a number of phases with both the forwards and backs. We gain a penalty and take a quick tap to keep the pressure on the Edinburgh line. Shontayne Hape is stopped a metre or so short and the phases continue and eventually another penalty is gained.
A number of Irish replacements - Nick Kennedy for James Sandford, Max Lahiff for Alex Corbisiero and Ross Samson for Dodge after 52 minutes.
We take a scrum, but knock on from the resulting possession and Edinburgh clear their lines.
Another couple of replacements, JJ making a welcome return from injury replacing Jonathan Spratt and Steve Shingler is on for Topsy after 57 minutes. Irish are dominating possession but not making any real progress and the odd handling error tends to push us back as far as we had gone forward.
A break from Edinburgh, but a forward pass is spotted by the referee, Visser crosses the try line, but play comes back for the Irish scrum.
We gain possession deep in our half and keeping the ball in hand we progress towards halfway, JJ kicks through, Adam collects the ball and passed back to JJ who fends of the Edinburgh challenge and runs in to score in the corner - Jarvis is wide with the conversion attempt, so after 68 minutes Edinburgh lead 20-11.
Edinburgh have possession in our 22 and advance towards our line, the ball is moved out to Netani Talei to score in the corner and Laidlaw again converts, Edinburgh lead 27-11 after 73 minutes.
Edinburgh have a scrum just inside our half, from the resulting possession the break into our 22, but they ball goes loose and a chance for the bonus point try is lost. We keep the ball in hand in our 22, but knock on, so scrum to Edinburgh, they break forward from the scrum, the ball goes wide and Lee Jones in in the corner, another difficult conversion is made to look easy by Laidlaw and it is now 34-11 after 78 minutes.
And that is that - the news for Cardiff is that the Blues have won, but only scored 3 tries, so Edinburgh have topped the group - congratulations to Edinburgh and also to the Cardiff Blues who have also qualified as the best 2nd placed team.
For us it was a bit of a disappointing end to a disappointing Heineken Cup campaign, although we had some good periods of possession during the game, with the exception of JJ's try, we didn't look particularly threatening. For the HC campaign overall, it was our poor home results that were our downfall, but at least we had Paris, the rare European trip where it was a great weekend including the rugby.
Certainly those of us on the LI Pubs trip had a good weekend and the many others that I spoke to all seemed to have enjoyed themselves - so "Great weekend - shame about the rugby"
"The Highest Apple" remains out of our reach for another season - but if we can maintain our current league position, we will have another crack at it next season.
The title for this report is a song by Scotland’s finest band - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zAsN88kgc - and also keeps to the fruit theme from last week’s report. I didn't come across any zebras in lifts and didn’t have time to visit the pandas, so I will leave you with a gorilla playing the drums.
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Posted by: The Craic www.londonirish.org (IP Logged)
Date: 24/01/2012 20:44
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Re: An Ubhal As Airde (The Highest Apple)
Posted by: b.q.f.m (IP Logged)
Date: 25/01/2012 07:36
Great report Al.
I would almost agree with you about Runrig as you well know (never quite so good after Donnie left) but then there is the teenage part of me that would have to give that award to THE BAY CITY ROLLERS!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012:01:25:08:04:06 by b.q.f.m.
I would almost agree with you about Runrig as you well know (never quite so good after Donnie left) but then there is the teenage part of me that would have to give that award to THE BAY CITY ROLLERS!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012:01:25:08:04:06 by b.q.f.m.
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