Rugby: Edinburgh's Heineken Cup bid gets lost in France

Published on Monday 12 October 2009 10:01

EDINBURGH'S Heineken Cup hopes are hanging by a thread after losing 31-7 to Stade Francais in Paris.

Nothing other than a win will do in Edinburgh's second match against Ulster next Saturday and, while Rob Moffat's men have already beaten the province in their Ravenhill fortress once this season, since then the fortunes of the two clubs could not have been more different.

Ulster have had two good wins to celebrate against the Scarlets and against Bath in the Heineken Cup while Edinburgh have conceded eight tries in losing to the Ospreys and Stade. If momentum is everything in sport, Ulster have it while Edinburgh appear moribund.

Stade had their fourth try and the bonus point that comes with it as early as the half-hour mark so, with the outcome already decided, both teams made a raft of second half substitutions which seemed to improve things for the visiting team. Although they remained under the cosh for large parts of the game Rob Moffat's men actually won the second half 7-3 thanks to a 72nd minute try from Ben Cairns. All Stade could manage after the break was one solitary penalty from substitute scrum half Noel Oelschig as the flood of tries finally dried up.

It is dangerous to read too much into a statistic that was won when the match was already lost but, after grabbing his try, Cairns would have had another one but for an off the ball jersey tug that went unpunished by the match officials which meant that the slight centre was just too late to collect the scoring pass. On both occasions, the try and the one got away, Cairns interacted cleverly with substitute Nick De Luca.

"It was nice to get a try but when you give the opposition such a big lead in the first half you are always going to be up against it," said Cairns.

"We need to go home and have a hard look at ourselves individually at our own performances, come back in on Monday and get ready for the Ulster game. It was massively disappointing especially because there were quite a few Edinburgh supporters who travelled across for the game.

"We probably played too much rugby at times in the first half between the two ten metre lines and on our own as well. We had too many single runners who would take contact and then get turned over. Stade are so clinical on turnover ball and they punished us." Cairns knows the architect of Edinburgh's downfall better than most having gone head to head with Lionel Beauxis at age-group level.

The Stade fly half is one of the unsung heroes in a team of superheroes who does the right thing at the right time with the minimum of fuss. In the opening minutes of the match Beauxis got the ball just a few metres from his own try line and kicked it into touch within a few metres of Edinburgh's twenty-two metre line.

It was a sign of things to come, so even at that early stage had Edinburgh's resolve melted in the face of such a weapon?

"We knew he had a massive boot," says Cairns. "I've played against him since Scotland Under 18 level and he's always had that massive boot on him. We knew we'd be up against that but that shouldn't have stopped us from trying to play a bit of territory as well and get ourselves into the game. Instead we played too much rugby and got turned over because we weren't good enough at the breakdown."

"After the Ospreys game we talked about our defence and it was the one thing we wanted to put right against Stade. It didn't happen. We need to have a real hard look at ourselves and bounce back and get ready for the Ulster game."

Moffat now has a selection headache. Whether to continue with the starting team that failed so badly in the last two matches or to freshen up his run-on 15 with some of the second half substitutes who seemed to make a difference in Paris?

"You always want your subs to have an impact and I think that's something we have definitely developed in my time at Edinburgh," noted Cairns. "Every player that comes on to the pitch now makes an impact which is great and it puts pressure on the starting team especially when the starting team played like they did in the first half."

"That's what you want from your subs, to come on and make an impact and to be fair the second half was a lot better compared to the first so we'll take a few positives from the second half and start preparing for Ulster."

It's only the second round of pool matches but Edinburgh are already facing their "cup final".

Scorers:

Stade Francais: Tries: Arias, Parisse, Pape, Beauxis. Con: Dupuy (4). Pen: Oelschig.

Edinburgh: Try: Cairns, Con: Godman

Stade Francais: H Southwell (O Phillips, 67 mins), J Arias, G Bousses, G Messina, M Gasnier; L Beauxis (M Bergamsco, 62), J Dupuy (N Oelschig, 40); R Roncero (D Weber, 62), D Szarzewski (M Blin, 62), S Marconnet (D Attoub, 40), T Palmer, P Pape (A Marchois, 67), J Haskell, A Burban (B Kayser, 34), S Parisse.

Edinburgh: C Paterson (S Jones, 60 mins), M Robertson, B Cairns, J Houston (N De Luca, 48), T Visser; P Godman, M Blair (G Laidlaw, 60); A Jacobsen (K Traynor, 48), R Ford, G Cross (R Grant, 62), S MacLeod, C Hamilton (S Turnbull, 50), A MacDonald, R Grant, A Hogg (S Newlands, 62).

Referee: N Owens (WRU).