Edinburgh unfazed by loss in Cardiff before Ulster

EDINBURGH geared up for this weekend’s historic Heineken Cup clash against Ulster with a disappointing 38-13 defeat in Cardiff yesterday – which condemned the capital side to finishing second bottom in the RaboDirect Pro 12 – but coach Michael Bradley says it was more important to come through the match without any injury worries.

With the semi-final against Ulster in Dublin coming up on Saturday, Bradley, as expected, left all of his key players at home and Cardiff took full advantage.

“This game, just six days before the Ulster match, was always going to be one of those days, really,” admitted Bradley.

“If the match had been at home we might have balanced it differently but two away matches coming into the semi-final was not ideal.

“Everyone is good back home with no injuries. Ulster will be favourites, they will have the majority of the crowd and the majority of them will be used to playing in that stadium.

“That is fine for us, we are well used to being the underdogs and we are looking forward to the day immensely. We will have a good following from Edinburgh, there will be Scottish connections in and around Dublin who will come along to support us and potentially a couple of Munster people as well. Edinburgh have proven this year that, on our day, if things go right for us we are a very, very dangerous side and that is the confidence we have going into the game.”

Glasgow were also in RaboDirect Pro12 action yesterday, and DTH van der Merwe’s late try sealed a narrow 13-8 victory over Treviso and kept the Warriors on course for the play-offs.

The Canadian wing marked his comeback from injury with the try three minutes from time as Glasgow finally saw off a spirited Treviso effort. Glasgow kept their top-four place and Sean Lineen’s men will carry a four-point cushion into this weekend’s game against Connacht.