Vellacott brace eases Edinburgh through
MATCH REPORT: A quick-fire brace from Ben Vellacott helped to power Edinburgh past Aviron Bayonnais 33-15 and into the EPCR Challenge Cup quarterfinal.
The scrumhalf’s efforts in the 53rd and 56th minutes came when Aviron Bayonnais were down to 14, with Yan Lestrade shown a yellow card for a late challenge.
Hamish Watson, Matt Currie and Duhan van der Merwe also crossed the line, with Ben Healy adding four conversions.
The win came despite Tom Spring’s best efforts for the visitors – he scored all of their points courtesy of two tries, a conversion and a penalty.
With their place in the last eight confirmed Edinburgh, will be keenly watching the Sharks versus Zebre Parma, the winner of which they will play next weekend.
Scorers:
For Edinburgh:
Tries: Watson, Currie, Vellacott 2, van der Merwe
Cons: Healy 4
For Bayonne:
Tries: Spring 2
Con: Spring
Pen: Spring
Teams:
Edinburgh: 15 Wes Goosen, 14 Jake Henry, 13 Mark Bennett, 12 Matt Currie, 11 Duhan van der Merwe, 10 Ben Healy, 9 Ben Vellacott (captain) 8 Viliame Mata, 7 Hamish Watson, 6 Jamie Ritchie, 5 Grant Gilchrist, 4 Sam Skinner, 3 WP Nel, 2 Ewan Ashman, 1 Luan de Bruin
Replacements: 16 Dave Cherry, 17 Mikey Jones, 18 D’Arcy Rae, 19 Jamie Hodgson, 20 Luke Crosbie, 21 Ali Price, 22 James Lang, 23 Chris Dean
Bayonne: 15 Aurélien Callandret, 14 Bastien Pourailly, 13 Guillaume Martocq, 12 Yan Lestrade, 11 Nadir Megdoud, 10 Tom Spring, 9 Guillaume Rouet, 8 Manex Ariceta, 7 Baptiste Heguy (captain), 6 Rémi Bourdeau, 5 Manuel Leindekar, 4 Thomas Ceyte, 3 Pieter Scholtz, 2 Vincent Giudicelli, 1 Quentin Bethune,
Replacements: 16 Thomas Acquier, 17 Pierre Castillon, 18 Martin Villar, 19 Kote Mikautadze, 20 Pierre Huguet, 21 Kleo Labarbe, 22 Thomas Dolhagaray, 23 Riko Buliruarua
Referee: Chris Busby (Ireland)
Assistant Referees: Peter Martin (IRE), Paul Haycock (Ireland)
TMO: Mark Patton (Ireland)
Source @EPCR