Edinburgh hold off resilient Scarlets

PRO14 REPORT: Edinburgh weathered a resilient Scarlets performance to leapfrog their rivals into second place in Conference B with a bonus-point 31-21 win at Murrayfield.

Tom Brown and Bill Mata both grabbed a brace of tries, capping an impressive attacking performance from the Scottish side, but their opponents didn’t make life easy.

Scarlets had the lead after the break with Edinburgh down to 14, but Richard Cockerill’s men held out and made their rivals pay when they were restored to a full complement.

The home side started the game on the front foot, and when DTH van der Merwe saw an early try ruled out when he was adjudged not to have grounded the ball after Callum Hunter-Hill’s chipped kick, the decision only served to spur the home side.

They made the pressure tell when Mata burrowed over at the back of a strong driving maul from an Edinburgh line-out inside, with ten minutes not yet played.

But the Welsh side fought back, capitalising on a rare foray into Edinburgh territory when the Scarlets’ forwards showed patience in the centre of the pitch before Kieron Fonotia made up ground, feeding Morgan Williams out wide who evaded tackles to cross.

They weren’t level for long; Edinburgh tallied up the phases, their characteristic recycling of the ball symbolic of their performance, with Brown eventually dotting down after the ball was moved from one side of the pitch to the other when a gap was spotted in the opposite corner.

And they earned themselves breathing space when Brown went over for a second time in less than ten minutes, a powerful scrum on the Scarlets five-metre line made up ground, and just when it looked like the forwards would go over, Henry Pyrgos looped a pass out wide to a wide-open Brown.

But Scarlets once again responded on the stroke of half-time, making the most of a line-out deep into Edinburgh territory.

The Welsh side mauled patiently before the ball was eventually recycled back to Dan Jones, who dinked a deft kick through to Paul Asquith, and the sides went into the break with just three points between them.

And Scarlets capitalised on a Simon Hickey sin-bin early in the second period, when Johnny McNicholl crossed after a routine scrum saw the ball fed out wide, with the kiwi finding space in Edinburgh’s depleted line to score.

Again, Edinburgh rallied; Pierre Schoeman profited from attritional ball-carrying to cross and seal Edinburgh’s bonus point and they looked to see things out.

Simon Gardiner’s late yellow card all-but sealed the win for Edinburgh, and they duly added a fifth score to seal things when Mata leapt over a ruck.

✅ Two tries
✅ Bonus point win
✅ Man of the match performance

Here’s Bill Mata being presented with his well-earned reward 🙌#EDIvSCA #GUINNESSPRO14 pic.twitter.com/OhSw31xjto

— PRO14 RUGBY (@PRO14Official) November 2, 2018

The scorers

For Edinburgh
Tries: Mata 2, Brown 2, Schoeman
Cons: Hickey 2, Socino

For the Scarlets
Tries: Williams, Asquith, McNicholl
Cons: Jones 3

Yellow cards: Simon Hickey (Edinburgh, 47), Simon Gardiner (Scarlets, 73)

The teams:

Edinburgh: 15 Dougie Fife, 14 Tom Brown, 13 James Johnstone, 12 Chris Dean, 11 Duhan van der Merwe, 10 Simon Hickey, 9 Henry Pyrgos (captain), 8 Bill Mata, 7 Ally Miller, 6 Luke Hamilton, 5 Callum Hunter-Hill, 4 Jamie Hodgson, 3 Murray McCallum, 2 Ross Ford, 1 Pierre Schoeman.
Replacements: 16 David Cherry, 17 Rory Sutherland, 18 Pietro Ceccarelli, 19 Callum Atkinson, 20 Lewis Wynne, 21 Nathan Fowles, 22 Jason Baggott, 23 Juan Pablo Socino.

Scarlets: 15 Johnny McNicholl, 14 Ioan Nicholas, 13 Kieron Fonotia, 12 Paul Asquith, 11 Morgan Williams, 10 Dan Jones, 9 Sam Hidalgo-Clyne, 8 Will Boyde (captain), 7 Josh Macleod, 6 Blade Thomson, 5 David Bulbring, 4 Steve Cummins, 3 Werner Kruger, 2 Ryan Elias, 1 Phil Price.
Replacements: 16 Dafydd Hughes, 17 Dylan Evans, 18 Simon Gardiner, 19 Tom Price, 20 Ed Kennedy, 21 Kieran Hardy, 22 Clayton Blommetjies, 23 Uzair Cassiem.

Referee: Ben O’Keeffe (New Zealand)
Assistant referees: Sam Grove-White, David Sutherland (both Scotland)
TMO: Neil Patterson (Scotland)

Source: @PRO14Official