Stormers feel the Edinburgh wrath

MATCH REPORT: Edinburgh bounced back from last week’s massive hammering at the hands of a South African team to dish out some pain of their own to visitors from the Republic.

Outscoring the Stormers by five tries to one, the Scottish franchise scored an impressive 38-7 United Rugby Championship victory in the capital on Saturday.

The win followed last week’s 21-55 loss to the Lions, after a horror first half in which they coughed up 48 unanswered points at Ellis Park.

They were determined to set the record straight.

“We showed who we are as people and Edinburgh players,” captain Grant Gilchrist said of the Round Four win.

He added that they spoke about showing their ‘character’ after last week’s loss.

Despite sharing the possession with a willing, but error-prone Stormers team, flyhalf Ross Thompson pulled the string to allow Edinburgh top dominate the territorial battle.

* To recap the drama, CLICK HERE!

* Article continues below …

It was a scrappy start, with both teams making a succession of sloppy errors and penalties within the first 10 minutes.

Edinburgh captain Grant Gilchrist eventually went over in the 17th minute, from a ruck close, but the TMO found that he lost it backwards.

From a subsequent scrum and multiple forward rushes later, Patrick Harrison went under the defensive line and over the tryline for the opening score. Flyhalf Ross Thompson added the conversion for a 7-0 lead, as the first quarter came to a close.

From the restart, Edinburgh made the Stormers pay for a poor line-out – flank Ben Muncaster being put into space and springing over from 40 metres out. Thompson added the conversion for a 14-0 lead.

It was now the Stormers’ turn to apply pressure, three penalties and a scrum later, Keke Morabe knocked on over the line.

That was followed by a succession of five-metre scrums in favour of the Stormers as the game reached the half-hour mark.

From one of those scrums, Damian Willemse put Ruhan Nel over with a well-timed pass. Willemse added the conversion to narrow the gap to 7-14.

Neethling Fouche was held up over the line and Angelo Davids knocked on inside the Edinburgh ingoal area, as the visitors continued to apply the pressure – the home team taking a seven-point lead into the break.

The Stormers had another try turned over early in the second half, when the TMO found that John Schickerling had ripped the ball after a tackle was completed.

Soon afterwards Darcy Graham was tackled into touch a metre from the Stormers line, as the intensity and ferocity of the game increased significantly.

Edinburgh now enjoyed a period of territorial dominance, but just were not clinical enough to make it count.

The Edinburgh forward were eventually rewarded for their gruelling work, when – after another period of multiple forward raids – Darcy Graham went over in the right corner for the home team’s third try. Thompson made it a 14-point (21-7) lead with the conversion on the hour mark.

Captain Grant Gilchrist finished off another raid by the Edinburgh forwards when he barged over from close range, with Thompson’s conversion making it 28-7.

The Stormers, not having a good day at the office, made more errors as their level of desperation and frustration increased.

Thompson rubbed salt into the festering Stormers’ wounds with a penalty in the 75th minute – 31-7.

There was enough time for flank Ben Muncaster to score his second try of the match and Edinburgh’s fifth, as the home team put a seal on a great win. Replacement Cammy Scott added the conversion to make the final score 38-7.

The scorers

For Edinburgh
Tries: Harrison, Muncaster 2, Graham, Gilchrist
Cons: Thompson 4, Scott
Pen: Thompson

For the Stormers
Try: Nel
Con: Willemse

Teams:

Edinburgh: 15 Wes Goosen, 14 Darcy Graham, 13 Mosese Tuipulotu, 12 Matt Scott, 11 Duhan van der Merwe, 10 Ross Thompson, 9 Ali Price, 8 Magnus Bradbury, 7 Ben Muncaster, 6 Jamie Ritchie, 5 Grant Gilchrist (captain), 4 Jamie Hodgson, 3 Paul Hill, 2 Patrick Harrison, 1 Pierre Schoeman.
Replacements: 16 Harri Morris, 17 Boan Venter, 18 D’arcy Rae, 19 Marshall Sykes, 20 Luke Crosbie, 21 Ben Vellacott, 22 Cammy Scott, 23 Matt Currie.

Stormers: 15 Warrick Gelant, 14 Angelo Davids, 13 Ruhan Nel, 12 Dan du Plessis (captain), 11 Leolin Zas, 10 Damian Willemse, 9 Paul de Wet, 8 Keke Morabe, 7 Ben-Jason Dixon, 6 Dave Ewers, 5 Ruben van Heerden, 4 John Schickerling, 3 Neethling Fouche, 2 Andre-Hugo Venter, 1 Juan Harris.
Replacements: 16 Jean-Jacques Kotze, 17 Sithembiso Sithole, 18 Sazi Sandi, 19 Adre Smith, 20 Marcel Theunissen, 21 Willie Engelbrecht, 22 Stefan Ungerer, 23 Wandisile Simelane.

Referee: Ben Whitehouse (Wales)
Assistant referees: Hollie Davidson (Scotland), Rob McDowell (Scotland)
TMO: Tom Spurrier (Wales)

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