Edinburgh 16 Leinster 27: Edinburgh caught cold by Dubliners

Published on Saturday 11 October 2008 19:35

YOU become a hostage to fortune when the theme tune from Mission: Impossible blares out of the PA system immediately ahead of the Heineken Cup opener as happened at Murrayfield yesterday. Sure enough, a win in the opening match of their campaign was beyond the home team as it proved third time lucky for their Irish visitors.

Edinburgh and Leinster have been paired in the European pool stages for the last three successive years, but yesterday was the Dubliners' first victory and it came in bizarre circumstances.

After 15 minutes Edinburgh were comfortably in control of events and leading 3-0 thanks to a Phil Godman penalty. By half time they were trailing 24-6 and effectively out of the Heineken Cup after just 40 minutes of rugby. Leinster had ripped them apart with four first-half tries, two of which came within two minutes of each other; it was Scotland versus Italy all over again, only worse.

Andy Robinson mentioned "luck" as one of his pre-requisites for European success, but the Irish had a monopoly on that commodity yesterday. The visitors spent long stretches of the opening half defending deep inside their own territory and they still managed to grab four tries on pretty much the only four times they entered the Edinburgh 22. Talk about taking your chances.

Even as Edinburgh launched a second-half fightback of sorts a golden opportunity for a try went west when Leinster's scrum-half Chris Whitaker slapped down Hugo Southwell's scoring pass to Scott Newlands and the referee decided that a penalty was sufficient sanction. But then again the performance of referee Rob Debney was almost as bad as that of the home team.

Leinster's second score only came after centre Luke Fitzgerald posted a new world record for the longest forward pass in the history of the game to go unflagged by any official. It travelled forward almost as far as it went sideways. Dan Marino would have been proud to own it, but not one of the three match officials spotted a mistake that was clear from the back of the stand.

And still Edinburgh were architects of their own downfall. They made a huge number of mistakes and missed tackles, more than they would expect to concede in an entire season. Everyone was guilty from new boy Scott Newlands to the experienced Mike Blair. The breakaway missed Filipe Contepomi, who slipped the ball to Brian O'Driscoll for Leinster's second score, while the Edinburgh skipper allowed O'Driscoll to counter attack deep inside his own half before returning the favour and sending Contepomi over the line for Leinster's third try.

The visitors' first touchdown was just as bad, not least because it set the tone for the entire match. Rocky Elsom benefited from turnover ball but the Aussie flanker was allowed to run nearly 40 yards to score with Blair and Godman both missing diving tackles. It was that sort of day. Paterson missed a simple penalty, Southwell missed touch and the team missed any direction.

Leinster scored their fourth try from the re-start immediately after their third try to claim a bonus point before the half time break after Jamie Heaslip was ushered down the blindside of a ruck with due pomp and ceremony, Girvan Dempsey was the link to Shane Horgan who scored in the corner.

All this came against a team that built a deserved reputation as terrier-like defenders last season. Edinburgh have been a fiendishly difficult team to break down in the past but they gifted yesterday's opposition absolute acres of space. It was embarrassingly bad at times and coach Andy Robinson was screaming blue murder in the back of the West Stand, as well he might.

The plus points for Edinburgh were rare. Allan Jacobsen played with some urgency late on, Alan MacDonald did well on his return to action and big Jim Hamilton enjoyed a couple of canters up the middle of the field, one of which led to Edinburgh's first and only try on 50 minutes. Hamilton's break took play to within a few yards of the Leinster try line and Blair's quick pass to the narrow side picked out Contepomi with precision. The Argentine was 20 yards offside but that irrelevance didn't prevent him from plucking the ball out of the air and clearing to touch. Leinster's fly-half was correctly yellow carded but the resulting penalty try may have been a tad generous; payback perhaps for that first-half forward pass.

Things got marginally better for Edinburgh in the second half but only because they couldn't get much worse. The home team occasionally got their high-tempo game up and running but the accuracy needed to break down the Dubliners was missing and too much of Edinburgh's play was too lateral.

Paterson kicked another penalty but it was wiped out by Contepomi as the match petered out without much more drama. There had obviously been a surfeit of that early on.

Edinburgh: C Paterson; M Robertson (J Houston 51 min), H Southwell (D Blair 77 min), N De Luca, S Webster; P Godman, M Blair (capt); A Jacobsen, R Ford, G Cross, M Mustchin, J Hamilton (B Gissing 60 min), S Newlands, A MacDonald, A Hogg.

Leinster: G Dempsey; S Horgan, B O'Driscoll, L Fitzgerald, R Kearney; F Contepomi, C Whitaker; S Wright, B Jackman (J Fogarty 73 min), CJ Van Der Linde, L Cullen (capt), D Toner, R Elsom, S Jennings, J Heaslip.

Scorers: Edinburgh – Try: Pen try. Conv: Paterson. Pens: Godman, Paterson (2). Leinster – Try: Elsom, O'Driscoll, Contepomi, Horgan. Conv: Contepomi (2). Pen: Contepomi

Referee: Rob Debney.

Yellow cards: Contepomi (Leinster), Mustchin (Edinburgh).

Attendance: 5,376