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Edinburgh keep hot start alive with win over Bulls

By PA
Blair Kinghorn of Edinburgh Rugby arrives. Photo By Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images

Edinburgh claimed a fourth victory from five starts in the BKT United Rugby Championship when they battled to a 31-23 victory against the Bulls.

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The South Africans were marginally the stronger side in a first half which ended with them 13-11 ahead, but they were a man down for almost the whole of the second half after their captain Marcell Coetzee was sent off for a dangerous tackle on Pierre Schoeman.

Johan Goosen gave the South Africans an eighth-minute lead with a delicate grubber that Devon Williams got on the end of to touch down. Goosen added the conversion.

Ben Healy hit back for Edinburgh with two penalties in quick succession, before Goosen was on target with two awards of his own to make it 13-6 after nearly half an hour.

Then Healy sent a penalty to the corner and the pack drove from the lineout, with Ewan Ashman finishing off the try. The conversion attempt went wide.

The second half had hardly got under way when Coetzee was shown the red card.

Bulls number eight Cameron Hanekom was sent to the sin-bin when Edinburgh attacked right from the restart. That penalty went to touch too, and from the lineout drive Ashman got try number two. Healy missed the conversion attempt, but at 16-13 Edinburgh were in the lead for the first time.

Then with the Bulls still down to 13 men, Duhan van der Merwe got his team’s third try after Mark Bennett and Kinghorn had made the space for the winger.

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Inside the final quarter, Bill Mata finished off a powerful drive for the bonus-point try, and Healy – who had missed the Van der Merwe attempt – added the two points.

Elrigh Louw got one back for the Bulls following a tap penalty, and Jaco van der Walt converted.

Mata was yellow-carded for shoulder-to-head contact on Lions centre Stedman Gans, and Van der Walt scored from the penalty to narrow the gap to 28-23.

On-loan Glasgow Warriors scrum-half Ali Price came off the bench in the second half for his Edinburgh debut.

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Peterson was yellow-carded in the dying minutes for a deliberate knock-on. Healy’s successful penalty ended the game.

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Tom 1 hour ago
England player ratings vs South Africa | 2024 Autumn Nations Series

That 2019 performance was literally the peak in attacking rugby under Eddie. If you thought that was underwhelming, the rest of it was garbage.


I totally get what you're saying and England don't need or have any God given right to the best coaches in the world... But I actually think the coaches we do have are quite poor and for the richest union in the world, that's not good enough. 


England are competitive for sure but with the talent pool up here and the funds available, we should be in the top 3. At the very least we should be winning six nations titles on a semi-regular basis. If Ireland can, England definitely should.


England's attack coach (Richard Wigglesworth) is Borthwick's mate from his playing days at Saracens, who he brought to Leicester with him when he became coach. Wigglesworth was a 9 who had no running or passing game, but was the best box kicker in the business. He has no credentials to be an attack coach and I've seen nothing to prove otherwise. Aside from Marcus Smith’s individual brilliance, our collective attack has looked very uninspiring.

 

England's defence coach (Joe El-Abd) is Borthwick's housemate from uni, who has never been employed as a defence coach before. He's doing the job part time while he's still the head coach of a team in the second division of French rugby who have an awful defensive record. England's defence has gone from being brutally efficient under Felix Jones to as leaky as a colander almost overnight.


If Borthwick brings in a new attack and defence coach then I'll absolutely get behind him but his current coaches seem to be the product of nepotism. He's brought in people he's comfortable with because he lacks confidence as an international head coach and they aren't good enough for international rugby.


England are competitive because they do some things really well, mostly they front up physically, make a lot of big hits, have a solid kicking game, a good lineout, good maul, Marcus Smith and some solid forwards. A lot of what we do well I would ascribe to Borthwick personally. I don't think he's a bad coach, I think he lacks imagination and is overly risk averse. He needs coaches who will bring a point of difference.


I guess my point is, yes England are competitive, but we’re not aiming for competitive and I honestly don't believe this coaching setup has what it takes to make us any better than competitive.


On the plus side it looks like we have an amazing crop of young players coming through. Some of them who won the u20 world cup played for England A against Australia A on the weekend and looked incredible... Check out the highlights on youtube.

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