London Irish 19 - 20 Edinburgh: McInally comes of age as Edinburgh enjoy a stunning win on the road

Edinburgh have enjoyed success in the Heineken Cup before, with the likes of Leicester and Wasps leaving Murrayfield empty-handed in recent years, but only rarely has the pro-team claimed a major scalp away from the comfort of their home turf.

Edinburgh have enjoyed success in the Heineken Cup before, with the likes of Leicester and Wasps leaving Murrayfield empty-handed in recent years, but only rarely has the pro-team claimed a major scalp away from the comfort of their home turf. The last time the capital club produced a performance on the road to match Saturday’s dismantling of London Irish was away to Castres back in 2008, but, even then, the French team had already lost their opening fixture.

Irish coach Toby Booth pointed to the five or six key starters who were missing from his line-up, explaining: “That’s not an excuse, it’s a fact”. Let’s just agree it’s both and move on. What Booth did not mention was the indiscipline that meant England winger Delon Armitage was unavailable for selection after his fourth suspension of the year. Another England player lost his rag, because Shontayne Hape’s high tackle was responsible for putting Edinburgh flanker David Denton off the field with a bad case of the “where am I’s”.

The replacement Sean Cox then made it his business to even the score and, after skirmishing with Hape all afternoon, the Edinburgh breakaway was sat on his backside by the Kiwi using an illegal shoulder charge. The resulting penalty ten minutes from time gave Edinburgh a famous win, while Hape was left to ponder the wisdom of his actions from rugby’s naughty step.

In reality, the one-point margin of victory flattered Irish because Edinburgh dominated long stretches of this match, but looked for much of the match like they would succumb to the howitzer boot of full-back Tom Homer, who kicked four penalties, one of which was several yards inside his own half and even then it sailed ten feet over the crossbar.

Despite trailing 16-7 and 19-10 in the second-half, Edinburgh kept their heads and scored ten points in a final-quarter fightback that was sparked by Stuart McInally’s 60th minute try. The one-time Watsonian has struggled occasionally to come to terms with the rough and tumble of professional rugby, but he came of age on Saturday with a calm, authoritative performance that played to his strengths.

Whether it was the large television audience or the faint whiff of the ordinary that clings to this Irish side like a bad smell, something inspired McInally, who walked away with the man of the match award. While he will never be big enough to run through brick walls, he was plenty quick and skilful enough to score Edinburgh’s second try after Nick De Luca flapped a speculative pass on, leaving his No 8 to power home from 20 yards out. “Previously I’ve not reached the heights that I want my personal performance to be at and, last season, I didn’t get an awful lot of game time,” said the breakaway after the game. “It was a bit of a stop-start season and I had a few injuries, so it nice to get a good run of games now and to come away with a decent personal performance and a good team performance. It’s a real morale booster for me.

“We talked a lot at half-time about how we wanted to play a bit wider. In the first-half, we were hitting off ten and we got a lot of good go forward playing a little wider.

“From a forward’s point of view, we felt quite comfortable and I felt we were quite dominant at the breakdown. We knew we had a battle in front of us, behind at half-time, and so to come away with a win is good. The result has come our way this time and, in the past, it’s maybe gone against us.”

“We did some analysis and saw how they flew out of the defensive line and they did just that, looking for a big hit on Nick [De Luca]. He’s got exceptional skills and he managed to flick it on and a hole opened up, so yeah, I was happy to get my first try for Edinburgh.”

Edinburgh are the mirror image of the national team, creating two scoring chances all afternoon and converting both of them. Tim Visser set up Lee Jones for the opening try in the first half and then McInally dragged his side back into the reckoning just as the Exiles established a nine-point lead and threatened to tighten their grip on proceedings. Michael Bradley will be delighted with the result, but he’ll know that Edinburgh’s first-up defence will need to improve if his side has hopes of competing in the later stages of this tournament.

Irish breached the Edinburgh defence on several occasions, most noticeably when winger Adam Thompstone barged past Jones and Jim Thompson – the pair seemed to hinder rather than help each other – to set up the Exiles’ only try by former Edinburgh scrum-half Ross Samson.

Next Friday Racing Metro come to Murrayfield and the French superstars are perfectly capable of winning at any ground in Europe. Bradley’s men will take great heart from Saturday’s win and the coach was pragmatic when asked if Racing would be entirely focused on this European Cup after losing their opening match to the Cardiff Blues.

“We’ll probably be able to tell their intentions from the team they select,” said the Irishman. If the likes of Juan Manuel Hernandez and Sebastien Chabal are left out of the starting XV, Edinburgh will fancy their chances of making it two from two.

Scorer: London Irish – Try: Samson. Con: Homer. Pens: Homer (4). Edinburgh – Tries: Jones, McInally. Cons: Leonard, Laidlaw. Pen: Leonard, Laidlaw.

London Irish: Homer; Ansbro, Shingler, Hape, Thompstone; Bowden (capt), Samson (Hodgson 67 min); Corbisiero (Rauternbach, 53), Buckland, Ion (Lahiff, 53), Kennedy, Garvey (Sandford 61 min), Evans, Gibson (Thorpe, 61), Sinclair.

Edinburgh: Thompson; Jones, De Luca, Scott, Visser; Leonard, Blair (Laidlaw, 45); Jacobsen, Ford (capt), Cross, Lozada, Turnbull, Denton (Cox, 27), Rennie (Grant, 45), McInally.