Edinburgh shrugged off a sluggish first-half performance to dig out a 24-19 URC victory at the Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi, but they fell one try short of the bonus-point win they would have wanted. Two of their three touchdowns came in the last 15 minutes, and, while they showed commendable composure to come out on top in difficult circumstances, head coach Sean Everitt insisted it had been a disappointing evening.

“I think we were very fortunate,” he said. “We hung in there, and the ascendancy that we got in the set piece got us the result at the end of the day. But you can’t be happy with an error-ridden performance like that. There are some guys here who haven’t played for five weeks, some others haven’t played for three, so we were a little bit rusty. But it’s no excuse. We know we’re a better team than that. We just lacked urgency in the first half and they beat us at the breakdown and we just couldn’t get any momentum.”

Everitt’s team kept their nerve, however, and in the end did manage to generate the momentum required to give them their seventh win from ten URC outings. “I thought the team was well led by Jamie [Ritchie],” Everitt added. “He showed a lot of composure. Five points would have been great, but at the end of the day we’ll take the win.”

Edinburgh's Jamie Ritchie and Zebre's Simone Gesi challenge in Parma.

Zebre got off to the best possible start with a try after just a couple of minutes. Winger Simone Gesi bounced out of two tackles, then just managed to avoid Ben Healy before passing to scrum-half Gonzalo Garcia, who touched down unopposed. Giovanni Montemauri added the conversion, and Edinburgh were 7-0 down before they had so much as threatened in attack themselves.

The Italians stretched their lead to 10-0 when Hamish Watson - making his 150th appearance for Edinburgh - was penalised and Montemauri was on target from about 40 metres out. At last, with 33 minutes on the clock, Healy got his team off the mark with a penalty from the edge of the 22.

Two minutes into the second half, another Montemauri penalty restored Zebre’s 10-point lead. Edinburgh soon had a chance of a kick at goal themselves, but they chose to tap and go – and eventually Boan Venter forced his way over from close range for the try. Healy converted to make the score 13-10.

Another Montemauri penalty made it 16-10, and then with 15 minutes to go Harry Paterson was sin-binned for taking out Gesi in the air. But Montemauri was off target for the first time in the game with the penalty attempt, and the 14 men took charge after that. Healy sent a penalty to touch, the lineout drive was collapsed by Zebre, and referee Ben Whitehouse awarded the penalty try.

That put Edinburgh ahead for the first time at 16-17 with a dozen minutes to play, and Zebre’s task was made harder by the sinbinning of Dylan de Leeuw for collapsing the maul. Dave Cherry then got the try he had been threatening to score all night. A penalty went to touch and the hooker finished off easily from the lineout drive, with Healy converting to make it 16-24.

Edinburgh replacement Javan Sebastian was yellow-carded two minutes from time, and in the last kick of the match, a Geronimo Prisciantelli penalty secured a deserved losing bonus point for Zebre.

'Fortunate' Edinburgh dig out win over Zebre as Jamie Ritchie's leadership hailed over Italians