Edinburgh 50 - 10 Aironi: Visser grabs hat-trick as Aironi put to the sword at Murrayfield

The Murrayfield decorations lent a festive glow to the old stadium but it was the Italians who came bearing gifts as Aironi played some stupendously dumb rugby to give Edinburgh an easy win; payback of sorts for Aironi’s solitary victory of the season that came back in September against Michael Bradley’s men.

“In terms of what we learned out there,” said the Edinburgh coach after the match, “we know that we can turn opportunities into tries. I thought the best thing about today was the performance of our pack in the sense of their first phase work, I thought it was very good. The scrummage went well and the lineout went well.”

Aironi were awful last night and Edinburgh filled their boots scoring four tries in the first half and another three after the break including a hat trick for man of the match Tim Visser.

“He’s playing very well,” said Bradley of his star winger with no one included to argue. “He’s enjoying his rugby as well and I think he likes the people he’s playing with and that creates a good environment for him, he thrives on that. He is a very, very good player.”

All this despite the young flyhalf Harry Leonard having one of his less effective outings of the season with a kicking game that was way too foot loose and still it wasn’t so much a match as a mismatch, far too one-sided to be interesting to any neutrals.

Aironi appeared determined to lose this one and they duly did so with absolute ease and if playing fifteen minutes with fourteen men hardly helped, Edinburgh matched them in that respect. The visitors set out their stall in the first quarter when Greig Laidlaw fluffed an early penalty attempt. The ball was knocked under his own posts by centre Matteo Pratichetti who then slipped in the wet turf. His closest Italian colleagues were all offside so Nick De Luca recovered possession and David Denton bashed his way over the line one play later.

Visser is mining a rich seam of try-scoring form with five in the league ahead of yesterday’s game and the big Dutchman barely broke sweat in adding Edinburgh’s second and third within five minutes of each other. His first was thanks to a De Luca break in midfield and the second came when the winger popped up in the midfield to sprint in untouched. He would have got a third but for Ruggero Trevisan’s quick thinking but still Edinburgh were 21-0 to the good inside well inside the first quarter.

Lee Jones was the next man to take advantage of the Italians’ goodwill, crossing the line a little later before being called back for a forward pass. The same man sparked a brilliant counter attack from deep only for James King to die with the ball just yards from the Aironi line. As if they didn’t have enough worries the Italians’ cause was further undermined when their international scrumhalf Tito Tebaldi was sin- binned for an offside infraction. Laidlaw kicked those three points and De Luca took full advantage to grab the bonus point try just after the half hour mark.

A little later Denton was also sent to the sidelines for ten minutes and it was impossible to avoid the conclusion that the referee was simply trying to even things up a little.

In amongst all these tries Aironi somehow got on the score board themselves when the giant lock George Biagi charged down a Laidlaw clearance to claim the five points.

Elsewhere the Edinburgh scrumhalf was forced to tackle his opposite number Tebaldi to prevent another try but that was that for the first half and the Italians were not noticeably better after the break although flanker Filippo Ferrarini grabbed Aironi’s second at the death.

With the match won and lost it was almost inevitable that Edinburgh took their foot off the gas in the second half and De Luca left the field with a painful shoulder not that it disruption his team’s serene progress. Edinburgh turned over an attacking scrum, Leonard judged his dink behind the defence to perfection and Visser was over for his hat- trick try without breaking that huge stride.

Edinburgh made six replacements including a new-look front row but if the personnel changed the story line remained the same. Phil Godman’s long diagonal was plucked out of the air by the flying winger Lee Jones who thoroughly deserved to get his name on the score sheet. There was still time for replacement scrumhalf Chris Leck to grab his club’s seventh try after Visser made the initial break.

Giulio Toniolatti and Esteban Lozada were both binned as the match wound down to its conclusion and Aironi’s forwards even muscled the ball over the Edinburgh line with flanker Ferrarini the last man up with the ball. It was a rare yelp of defiance and utterly at odds with everything that had gone before.