Edinburgh’s inconsistency has been nagging interim head coach Duncan Hodge all season, but he could hardly have expected to see it so starkly in one single game.
20-3 down at half-time to Stade Francais in Saturday’s night’s Challenge Cup match seemed like the point of no return. Edinburgh were dismantled in the scrum, loose in the lineout, and their execution of the basics was pitiful.
Duncan Weir kicked out on the full three times in a row at one point, and as the teams went off at the break Sam Hidalgo-Clyne was visibly berating his team-mates at their ineptitude.
An hour later, Edinburgh had won the second half 25-3, the scrum-half was accepting the man of the match award having just edged it from an inspired Weir, and the home side had finished the game winning scrum and maul penalties almost at will, all with 14 men for the last 25 minutes. There was basically no rational explanation for it.
One might point as a rallying point to Phil Burleigh’s second off, when the centre’s hand to the face of Pascal Pape brought an accentuated reaction from the Stade captain that even appalled French observers – one website sarcastically wondering whether Pape would pass the concussion protocols.
As ref Craig Maxwell-Keys pointed out to Burleigh, his hands were tied by new World Rugby directives no matter of Pape’s ludicrous acting, a hand to the face is now a straight red. And in any case Edinburgh were in full comeback flow already at that time, the remarkable thing was that it didn’t deflect them from the task.
A double prop change at half-time was the real key, with Ross Ford’s later arrival cementing a more solid and eventually dominating scrum. Also there was the complete turnaround in form of the half backs.
From a nightmare first half, Weir in particular stopped flirting with the touchlines and started booting long balls at the Stade back three, and they panicked under Edinburgh’s excellent chasing game. It brought field position for three tries scored by Damien Hoyland, Ben Toolis and Hidalgo-Clyne, plus the two final penalties from the stand-off that completed the comeback.
It puts Edinburgh in pole position in their pool, but with two away games now to be played in Paris and London. A couple of bonus points at worst out of those could see them with a target for quarter-final qualification against the Romanians Timosoara in their final match.
And if they can reach knockout rugby, the unpredictability of Hodge’s team might be a big strength.
