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London Irish 18 Edinburgh 23: Visitors set up Challenge Cup semi clash with Newport

Tim Visseris tackled by Eoin Griffin.
Tim Visseris tackled by Eoin Griffin.

Edinburgh booked their place in the Challenge Cup semi-finals with a thrilling 23-18 victory against London Irish at the Madejski Stadium in Reading.

The Scots will face Newport Gwent Dragons, who defeated Cardiff Blues 25-21 in their quarter-final clash on Saturday, at home in two weeks.

Edinburgh came firing out of the blocks establishing a 16-0 after 20 minutes thanks to an early WP Nel try and a trio of penalties from scrum-half Sam Hidalgo-Clyne.

The Exiles staged a superb comeback, however, as Conor Gilsenan and Scott Steele crossed for tries, with fly-half Shane Geraghty adding eight points from the boot to make it 18-16.

Fraser McKenzie’s try on the hour mark looked to have settled the contest in Edinburgh’s favour, and that score proved crucial as Alan Solomans’ side held on for the win.

The Edinburgh pack caused their opponents all kinds of problems early on, with their driving maul looking particularly potent. The Exiles did well to repel a few early drives but failed to halt a rampaging Nel, who crashed over from a surging maul in the 11th minute.

Trailing 16-0, the likes of Tom Guest, Eamonn Sheridan and Topsy Ojo took the game to the visitors, but costly handling errors put paid to a series of enterprising attacks.

The Exiles scored a crucial try just before the break.

Full-back Andrew Fenby, who looked threatening throughout the contest, ran a superb line off Sheridan before feeding Gilsenan who raced home from 20 metres out.

After Geraghty cut Edinburgh’s lead to just three points five minutes into the second-half, it was one-way traffic.

The Exiles were duly rewarded with their second try when scrum-half Steele crashed over in the left corner following great work from replacement Tom Fowlie in the build-up.

Geraghty missed the difficult touchline conversion as the Exiles took the lead for the first time in the game.

Edinburgh responded with a try of the highest quality as replacement lock McKenzie forced his way over, with Hidalgo-Clyne converting to make it 23-18 and setting up a grandstand finish heading into the final quarter.

The Exiles threw everything at Edinburgh and looked to have made the breakthrough when David Paice drove over in the final minute, but the television match official ruled that the Exiles hooker was held up over the line, handing Edinburgh the victory.