Munster 34 - 17 Edinburgh: Five-minute blitz sinks Edinburgh

AFTER two weeks of making the impossible seem relatively mundane, Edinburgh succumbed to rugby’s rather more prosaic version of defeat on Saturday night.

They were undone quite simply by a five-minute blitz of their second-choice front-row on their own line in the third quarter, before and during which both props, Jack Gilding and Kyle Trainor, were binned.

Referee Neil Paterson incongruously allowed three penalties and a yellow card to be issued before awarding the penalty try on the hour mark that ultimately decided a game that had largely been in the balance until then.

From a position at 13-10 where they seemed set fair to strike at a potentially vulnerable, greenhorn home side, Edinburgh were suddenly 20-10 down and careering backwards at an alarming rate as the game entered its final quarter.

Six minutes later, with one man still in the bin, Edinburgh conceded a third try and effectively their interest in securing the victory.

For Michael Bradley, returning to the native province whose failure to acknowledge him as a coaching candidate several years back must still rankle, those moments of madness would prove so costly.

“We shouldn’t have been in the position where we required another comeback,” he conceded. “That was the critical part of the game. We caught their kick-off after we had scored. That was our poorest part of the game. If we’d put that kick in a more advantageous position for ourselves, we could have put Munster under so much pressure. But we didn’t.

“At 13-10, we had a good chance to get something out of that game. I’m disappointed with our game management in the second-half. We were poor. We potentially should have been down a lot more at half-time. But we weren’t. So at 13-5 it was reasonably okay.

“We had a strong wind, then we got the first score of the second-half. So we were in a good position but we lost our shape then. We lost our way in terms of game management.”

A fifth-minute concession of a try had put the visitors on the back-foot, Denis Hurley blasting through Sep Visser’s paperweight challenge to put Danny Barnes in the corner, to which Ian Keatley added the extras.

Against the run of play, Edinburgh replied in the 13th minute, Gilding gobbling up Keatley’s mis-timed chip on half-way to waddle gleefully into space, then Netani Talei took up the race before gratefully allowing Phil Godman to race home.

“Playing into the wind, we realised it would have been a difficult first-half so it was a containment attitude going out there initially,” said Bradley. “We were pretty happy with 13-5 and then getting it to 13-10 meant we had a chance to win the game.”

Tom Brown’s strong finish in the left corner in the 49th minute had reduced the gap to the minimum and, but for missed kicks on a night when three men took up the challenge, the guests could even have led.

All of which was rendered academic thanks to the meltdown on their own line as Munster, recalling the fervour of old, sensed blood as they transformed the complexion of the game.

Still, Edinburgh did manage to eke out a breathless finish as Bradley’s effervescent men sought at least a four-try bonus point but that also proved beyond them, their successive brace of improbable Heineken Cup comebacks perhaps catching up with them.

Greig Laidlaw side-stepped Will Chambers to snaffle Edinburgh’s third try in the 71st minute to make it 27-17 and, given their recent propensity for resuscitation, Munster’s young heads wobbled for a moment.

Just three minutes later alas, when Mike Blair’s attempted counter-attacking pass was intercepted by counterpart Duncan Williams on his own ten-metre line, Munster turned the tables and Keatley’s deft chip sent debutant Luke O’Dea in to pinch the bonus point try. And so is presented the rather incongruous sight of the Heineken Cup Pool 2 pace-setters slumped rather miserably at 10th of 12 teams in the RaboDirect Pro12 league, an apt reflection on Scottish provincial rugby’s fractured attempts to rebound from its national World Cup disappointment.

“We’ve introduced a lot of young players who have done very well,” offered Bradley. “And we’re happy with that. The balance of the side is very good at the minute. When we roll out our top side, like Munster, we’re a dangerous side.

“There are elements that are not perfect. We have to really concentrate on first phase to get that right. But once the ball is in play, we’re a dangerous side. The mentality in the defence is improving all the time, so that’s important to us as well.

“The indicators are good. There’s a realisation that there are parts of the game that Edinburgh are not good at. We’ve identified them and we’re working on those.

“Scottish rugby is under a bit of pressure.

“But Glasgow are going well in the league, we did okay in the Heineken Cup and that’s a good bounce back from the World Cup.”