Luke Crosbie still confident Edinburgh can reach Pro14 play-offs

Edinburgh forward Luke Crosbie has faith in his team’s ability to recover from the disappointment of Saturday night’s home defeat by Cardiff Blues and still qualify for the Pro14 play-offs.
Edinburgh's Luke Crosbie takes on Rey Lee-Lo of Cardiff. Picture: SNS/SRUEdinburgh's Luke Crosbie takes on Rey Lee-Lo of Cardiff. Picture: SNS/SRU
Edinburgh's Luke Crosbie takes on Rey Lee-Lo of Cardiff. Picture: SNS/SRU

The 19-17 loss sent Richard Cockerill’s team down to fourth place in Conference B, but Crosbie is adamant that they can again thrive in adversity – as they did last season when unexpectedly battling through into the end-of-season series.

“It’s getting tighter, but we thrive on that,” the back-row forward said. “We want to get the best out of each other, and when there are bigger games coming up, must-win games, it’s more exciting during the week. We’ll learn a lot from that game both individually and as a team.”

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Edinburgh appeared to have the game won when the first score of the second half, a penalty from Jaco van der Walt, stretched their lead to 17-0. First-half tries from Nathan Fowles and Bill Mata, both converted by the stand-off, had given them a substantial advantage at the break.

However, Cardiff’s first try from scrum-half Lloyd Williams, converted by Jarrod Evans, was a big momentum switch. And once the Welshmen got in front thanks to two more tries from former Edinburgh wing Jason Harries, the second of which was converted by Evans, they never looked like going behind again.

“It was a tough one to take,” Crosbie added. “First half I thought we were playing to our game plan, then come the second half our set-piece fell off. It was quite a weird one to take, and gutting for us. I felt we left it all out on the field: we played the hardest we could. We’ll just regroup and come back stronger and learn from it. If we ever get in those situations again we’ll know how to cope.”

Although both Dougie Fife and Duhan van der Merwe were forced off with a head injury and a cut to a leg respectively, one positive aspect was the return from injury of both Damien Hoyland, who started on the wing, and his fellow-back Mark Bennett, who came off the bench.

Edinburgh will welcome others back in the coming weeks, and should also have some of their Scotland contingent available for Saturday’s visit to conference rivals Benetton, who climbed to second with a 57-7 win over the Dragons.