Edinburgh Rugby give glimpse of their undoubted potential - 'we’ll blow someone away'

Bennett says second-half performance against Scarlets is reminder of team’s strength

By the end of Saturday night’s URC round 14 clash between Edinburgh and Scarlets at Hive Stadium, the hosts were beginning to look like the side they have long told us they want to be.

Assured in defence, it was off counter-attack ball that they really lit up, as was particularly evident in the last two of their six tries in total, when defence was turned into attack with the sort of free-wheeling ease we have become more accustomed to seeing from the capital side’s great rivals at the other end of the M8 corridor. The last try was a thing of beauty, featuring a scything break from makeshift winger Chris Dean, exquisite link-play featuring a backhanded offload from replacement flanker Connor Boyle, and the sort of hot-stepping finish from Viliame Mata you would expect to see from a Darcy Graham-type winger rather than a giant Fijian No 8.

However, it was the penultimate home score which really pointed to the kind of team Edinburgh want to – must – become if their horizons are to raise beyond just scraping into the URC play-offs at the end of this season, so that they can build the momentum needed to catapult themselves deep into the knock-out phases.

Edinburgh's Marshall Sykes lies on top of a pile of bodies during the win over Scarlets.

Marshall Sykes, who brought big energy off the bench for Edinburgh, earned a turnover with a ferocious counter-ruck on his own 22, Ben Vellacott dived in – borderline legally – to scoop the ball out for his team, and Ewan Ashman slipped it to the short side where the whole pitch opened up for Mark Bennett. The centre pinned his ears back and went for it – and it looked for all the world like he was going to go all the way, but Scarlets No 8 Vaea Fifita had other ideas and started closing in.

Sometimes, even on a rugby field, discretion is the better part of valour, and Bennett calculated that a pass back inside over Fifita’s shoulder was the safer option. Except the ball caught the big Tongan and bounced right back into the Scotsman’s hands. Fifita lost his footing and Bennett trotted home. It was wonderful in its simplicity, efficiency and ruthlessness. The most striking thing was how quickly Bennett’s support runners had clicked into gear. As luck would have it, they weren’t needed on this occasion – but they looked like a team who knew what they needed to do when the smell of blood was in their nostrils, which hasn’t always been the case in the recent past.

“The whole thing was driven by fear,” Bennett self-deprecatingly chuckled afterwards. “He was reeling me in from miles away – but you take your chances when they come. We’re close to getting a good performance and there is going to be a day when we get it right and we’ll blow someone away. That’s what we’ve got to hold onto – knowing that performance is in us.”

Edinburgh are now eighth in the URC table, so back in the play-off seedings, but they are only ahead of 11th placed Lions on games won [they are equal on league points], so the final four rounds are going to be high stakes. Next up is 12th in table Cardiff away on Saturday.