Edinburgh Rugby left to lament familiar failings by clinical Connacht as season now rests on Europe

This was a performance that aptly summed up Edinburgh’s frustrating season as they let chances slip at the Sportsground in Galway and were then scorched by a clinical Connacht in an entertaining ten-try clash that ended 41-26 to the home team.

Edinburgh's WP Nel and Boan Venter look dejected after the game in Connacht.

The loss, their fourth in a row in the URC, leaves Edinburgh’s season hanging on a Champions Cup win away to Leicester Tigers next weekend but head coach Mike Blair knows this performance won’t cut it either in Welford Road. “We are really disappointed,” said Blair. “We didn’t play at the level we expected and we paid the price for that. We have got to look at that, we need to sharpen up and make opportunities count but we turned over the ball far too easily. We were in a good position at 15-7 approaching half-time but then gave away a try and that really left us with too much to do.”

Edinburgh enjoyed 64 per cent possession against the breeze in the opening half but still went in trailing 20-7 at the interval.

Impressive Connacht centre Cathal Forde cut them open for an early try and they built on it with an effort from flanker Conor Oliver to lead 15-0 at the end of the opening quarter.

Kinghorn went to the corners with three penalties but while they won the lineout each time and set up the drive, they failed to make yardage and were turned over each time by a superb home defence.

The pressure finally yielded a score six minutes from the break with a penalty to the right corner which was worked across the field at pace and then back again in a series of short drives which ended on the seventh attempt when Fijian tighthead Lee-Roy Atalifo squeezed over.

Boffelli added the simple conversion to cut the gap to 15-7 and, buoyed by that score, Edinburgh pushed forward before disaster struck when Connacht scrum-half Caolin Blade intercepted Kinghorn’s pass and ran from inside his own 22 to score and extend the lead to 20-7 at the interval. No 8 Jarrad Butler wrapped up the bonus point early in the second-half.

Edinburgh got a glimmer of hope after 47 minutes when a break from Bill Mata was taken on by Mark Bennett and when he was stopped, Mata took it on and speed and surged over. Boffelli’s conversion made it 27-14 with Connacht flanker Conor Oliver binned in the move for not releasing.

Edinburgh made the extra man count and replacement lock Glenn Young got over after 52 minutes to cut the gap to 27-19 before he had to go off for a HIA which resulted in Connacht going down to 13 players when Oisin Dowling was binned for the high tackle.

But that was as close as Edinburgh got. Any hope of a comeback disappeared when full-back Boffelli was binned for a mid-air collision and at 14-a-side it was Connacht who prospered.

Scrum-half Blade completed his hat-trick with two tries in three minutes, both times pouncing on hesitancy in the Edinburgh defence.

Kinghorn claimed a late try bonus but it won’t paper over the cracks.