EDINBURGH lost the basement battle of the Magners League on a freezing cold night in Belfast last night. It provided a much-needed first win of the campaign for the home side after four straight defeats had heaped enormous pressure on former Scotland
coach Matt Williams.
The narrow win takes the Ulstermen away from the foot of the table, but a mere three points ahead of now-bottom side Connacht who play Leinster tomorrow and they now sit one point behind Andy Robinson's side, who have now just won once in five outings.
A first-half try from David Pollock along with a conversion and two second-half penalties from Clinton Schifcofske were enough to give the Ravenhill side an all too rare winning feeling.
Afterwards Williams was understandably relieved: "Both teams were really tense, we should have put the game away a lot earlier. In the 80th minute Edinburgh were still in it and could have won with a try. We still played with a lot of fear and tension
"If Edinburgh had scored in the last minute, we would have been devastated and been pulling our hair out. But I couldn't have faulted their effort."
Robinson was left to reflect on another defeat and said: "We are just one or two per cent down in our performance. We dominated the first 20 minutes but couldn't score. We had a couple of clear run-ins and we still couldn't score, we tripped over our own feet and fell over. That affected our confidence to move forward and this allows teams to stay in the game.
"I am disappointed with the try that they scored given the fact that the ball was in touch and the touch judge didn't put his flag up. We need neutral touch judges and that was frustrating."
Edinburgh have now only recorded one victory from their last ten games in Ireland, and must be looking to next weekend's Heineken Cup opener at home to Leinster with real trepidation.
"If we perform like that next week against Leinster, we are going to have egg on our faces," conceded Robinson.
The visitors did start the game promisingly, dominating both territory and possession and showing a real keenness to move the ball wide and through the hands with pace. Captain Mike Blair grubbered and box-kicked expertly to keep Ulster pinned in their own half for the first 15 minutes.
Almost inevitably, however, it was Ulster who broke away to open the scoring going into the second quarter after their Australian wing Schifcofske had missed an easy penalty chance on a first sortie into Edinburgh's half.
On 25 minutes the Edinburgh defence failed to deal with an innocuous chip down the left-hand touchline by Ulster full-back Bryn Cunningham. Ireland and Ulster wing Andrew Trimble was first to dive on the ball and he passed to Darren Cave. The centre looked inside and found flanker Pollock charging up on his shoulder and he had enough gas to make it over the line. Schifcofske added the straightforward conversion.
Edinburgh opened the second half brightly and only last-ditch Ulster defence denied Hugo Southwell a try after he had hacked ahead and seemingly had the line at his mercy but failed to gather the awkwardly bouncing ball. When it was moved dangerously right Ulster were off their blocks far too fast to smother the Edinburgh backs. Ulster conceded the penalty and David Blair duly slotted.
Two minutes later, Blair was again on target this time from long range, punishing Ulster for not rolling away after the tackle.
Replacement Phil Godman then slotted the penalty to narrow the gap to four points with less than ten minutes remaining. However, the Scots were unable to find the try they needed for victory and had to settle for the losing bonus point.
But Williams had words of encouragement for the vanquished. "Andy Robinson is a world-class coach and they have improved enormously," said the Australian. "If they had Chris (Paterson], they would have had a lot more confidence. They are playing really good, hard rugby and are a very hard side to breakdown. I know them well from my time in Scotland and I have huge respect for them."
Scorers: Ulster: Tries: Pollock; Con: Schifcofske; Pens: Schifcofske 2. Edinburgh: Pens: D Blair 2, Godman.
Ulster: B Cunningham; C Schifcofske, D Cave, P Steinmetz, A Trimble; N O'Connor, C Willis; T Court, R Best, BJ Botha, E O'Donoghue, R Caldwell, S Ferris, D Pollock, R Diack. Subs used: I Boss, Fitzpatrick, Del Fava, McCullough.
Edinburgh: J Thompson; J Houston, H Southwell, N De Luca, M Robertson; D Blair, M Blair; A Jacobsen, A Kelly, G Kerr, J Hamilton, B Gissing, M Mustchin, A Hogg, S Newlands. Subs used: Ford, Cross, C Hamilton, Godman, Macrae, Laidlaw.
Attendance: 8,418
Referee: C Damasco (Italy).
