Jack Carty converted Niyi Adeolokun’s try and kicked a late penalty as Connacht claimed a hard-earned losing bonus point in a 17-10 GUINNESS PRO14 defeat to Edinburgh at BT Murrayfield tonight.
The South African trio of Duhan van der Merwe, Pierre Schoeman and Jaco van der Walt did all of the scoring for the Scots as they established a 17-0 lead, hitting double figures on the stroke of half-time in pursuit of their maiden win of the season.
Connacht made Edinburgh sweat with a final quarter fight-back, Jack Carty sending Niyi Adeolokun over for his second try in the space of a week and landing his only two place-kicks of the night, but seven points is as close as the province could get.
Connacht defence coach Peter Wilkins said afterwards: “Obviously we’re disappointed with the result. We’ll take a losing bonus point from the game, which is always important away from home if you don’t get the win. We just didn’t have enough possession in the first half, and the few possessions we did have we didn’t exit our half all that cleanly.
“But I thought our defence was excellent, we were physical and very committed, and unfortunately we just didn’t take our chances when we had them in the second half. It was a really strong effort, we’re proud of the boys. We created chances even with minimal ball. We’ll get opportunities at home to the Scarlets next week and we need to make sure we put them away.”
Tiernan O’Halloran was in the thick of the early action, finding a good touch off his right boot and then climbing highest to win Henry Pyrgos’ box kick. Young Sligo-born prop Conan O’Donnell, who was making his first PRO14 start, also had a nerve-settling carry as the teams battled for territory in the opening minutes.
Edinburgh had the first sight of the try-line in the eighth minute when out-half van der Walt broke from outside the Connacht 22 and passed wide to Matt Scott, but Adeolokun rescued the situation with a strong tackle, forcing the centre into touch. Paul Boyle, last week’s man-of-the-match against Zebre, also stole a lineout after the hosts had turned down a kickable penalty.
The home side pressed again in the 24th minute, Blair Kinghorn finding a gap on a speedy kick return from halfway and Kyle Godwin had to react smartly to bring down Hamish Watson a few metres out. With their indiscipline being to hurt them, Connacht captain Jarrad Butler’s attempted tackle on scrum half Pyrgos saw him sin-binned – on TMO Neil Paterson’s advice – for a ‘deliberate slap’ which dislodged the ball.
Taking the scrum option, Edinburgh forced a further penalty and used the advantage to hammer up close through full-back Kinghorn before Connacht were caught for numbers out wide and winger van der Merwe was sent over by Pyrgos. The conversion was drilled high through the posts by van der Walt for a seven-point return.
14-man Connacht got no reward for a 16-phase attack which began with a terrific break downfield from Boyle via an overthrown Edinburgh lineout. Watson won a crucial turnover to relieve the pressure on Richard Cockerill’s men, although their skipper Stuart McInally was fortunate to avoid being penalised for not rolling away.
With Edinburgh ending the first half on the front foot, O’Halloran did well to cover the danger from a van der Walt grubber kick. Despite a defiant turnover from Butler close to his line, the hosts succeeded in adding to their lead just before the break with van der Walt’s right boot punishing a scrum offence by O’Donnell’s replacement Peter McCabe.
The high penalty count against Connacht increased in the third quarter, this time allowing the Edinburgh pack to build for a well-executed 55th-minute maul try touched down by loosehead Schoeman. Bundee Aki and Colby Fainga’a, a debutant last Saturday, were among the second half replacements introduced by Andy Friend.
The westerners finally had some field position on the hour mark and they made it count, Aki and the forwards carrying hard off a maul before Carty’s lovely lobbed pass took out two defenders and put ace finisher Adeolokun diving over in the right corner. The Athlone-born out-half also nailed the difficult conversion, making it a 10-point game again.
It was a hard slog as Connacht’s attack lacked some much-needed penetration until Matt Healy got them on the move, popping up on both wings to gain precious ground. Shane Delahunt was tackled without the ball, allowing Carty to reduce the arrears to 17-10 with five minutes remaining. However, Edinburgh regained control of possession and sent their fans home happy by seeing out the result.
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