Mike Blair 'proud' despite Edinburgh's narrow defeat to Sharks

Mike Blair was a frustrated man but also a proud one last night as his understrength Edinburgh fell to a narrow defeat – their first loss of the year following three wins.

Edinburgh's Henry Immelman scores a first half try during the URC defeat to Sharks at the DAM Health Stadium. (Photo by Ross Parker / SNS Group)

The home team could have seized the victory in a frenzied finale which continued well beyond the 80-minute mark, but in the end they could pick up no more than a losing bonus point, and as a result have fallen out of the URC’s top eight.

“I am proud - proud of a lot of the effort and the commitment,” the head coach said. “We just lacked a bit of precision under pressure, not throughout the 80 minutes, but during certain periods. I’m proud of the effort, but I would have been happier if we had got the win.

“Playing against the Sharks, you know they will come at you with a lot of line speed and put you under pressure, and we did not handle that quite as well as we could,” he continued, referring to an opening period which saw the South African side go 14-0 up before a fightback by his own team secured a 19-14 lead at the break. “We gave Sharks a bit of field position, but then from the 20th to 40th minute we broke the game up, getting counter-attacks and some turnover ball when the Sharks were not as well set and we scored a couple of cracking tries.”

While the Sharks had rested some of their key players such as Siya Kolisi, Lukhanyo Am and Eben Etzebeth, Edinburgh were not only missing most of their senior Scotland players, but also had the likes of Emiliano Boffelli out injured. And, given that several other squad members were playing for the first time in some weeks after recovering from injury, Blair had no complaints about his team’s attitude.

“I am trying to get the balance right,” he added. “I am disappointed not to get the win but pleased with large parts of that performance.

“Adam [McBurney] had not played for three months and Boan [Venter] has not played for the last three weeks. Glen [Young] has not played since the Glasgow game, so we had a lot of guys coming back. It maybe took them a bit of time to get back into it, but I am proud of a lot of things we did.”

The Sharks went ahead through tries by Grant Williams and Marnus Potgieter, both converted by Curwin Bosch. But then two tries by hooker Adam McBurney, both converted by Charlie Savala, saw Edinburgh draw level at 14-14. Then Henry Immelman made it 19-14 with an unconverted touchdown as the home team continued to dominate.

But the Sharks just had the edge in the second half, and a penalty by Bosch took them to within two points. In the 60th minute, Bosch was just short with a monster penalty attempt from just inside his own 10-metre line, but two minutes later the visitors did regain the lead, with a close-range try eventually awarded to hooker Kerron van Vuuren.

The conversion was missed, and both teams had ample chances to add to their tallies. In the end, though, the Sharks defence did just enough to hold out.