Darcy Graham scored a hat-trick for Edinburgh against Ulster at Hive Stadium. Image: © Craig Watson –
www.craigwatson.co.uk 
DAVID BARNES @ Hive Stadium
A PASSION-FILLED, high-energy performance by Edinburgh delivered the bonus-point win they needed to book their place in this season’s URC play-offs and in next season’s EPCR Champions Cup. They know they won’t be back at Hive Stadium again in this campaign – so it was a victorious home farewell for Jamie Ritchie, Ali Price, Mark Bennett, Javan Sebastian and Robin Hislop – but Sean Everitt’s side will have to wait this final round if regular season matches is completed tomorrow [Saturday] night to find out where their quarter-final clash is going to be.
Edinburgh are seventh in the table overnight, but will drop to eighth if Scarlets pick up a bonus-point at Sharks tomorrow [Saturday] evening, in which case they are off to Dublin to take on Leinster in a fortnight’s time. Otherwise it will be Bulls in Pretoria … or even Glasgow at Scotstoun in the highly unlikely event of Bulls losing at home without a bonus point against Dragons tomorrow afternoon and Franco Smith’s side managing a shock bonus-point win over Leinster tomorrow night.
Regardless of where they end up, Edinburgh will attack the challenge with a real bounce in their step, having discovered a hunger and community of spirit in recent weeks which has seen them finally start to add up as a team to something equal or even greater than the sum of their parts. After pushing Sharks and Bath all the way in recent showings at Hive Stadium, this was almost certainly their most complete performance of the season – albeit against distinctly average opposition – with skipper for the night Magnus Bradbury leading the charge with two tries in a man-of-the-match performance and Darcy Graham helping himself to a hat-trick which should give British & Irish Lions coach Andy Farrell pause for thought.
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“Yes, we’ve done the job,” said head coach Everitt, reflecting on his team scraping into the top eight having looked dead and buried as recently as mid-February when they slumped to a demoralising home defeat to Zebre.
“I’m happy with the performance tonight,” he continued. “It has been a nigh pressure nine weeks with knock-out rugby [in the Challenge Cup] as well as the URC, and the guys have hit some form and I’m just happy for them because they have just got better and better.
“The second half tonight was probably the best 40 minutes we’ve had this season. We scored some outstanding tries and there was just some really good work from the forwards and backs together.
“We’ve got to judge ourselves on performance, because if you perform you’ll win, and you’ll also get the support that we got today and that’s important.
“Although we did lose narrowly to Bath and Sharks, they were still good performances. It would have been nice to get the points and have a bit of a cushion today, but I think the pressure the team has been under the last nine weeks has helped us in situations like today and it is going to help us in knock-out rugby going forward.”
The first of Edinburgh’s seven tries arrived just shy of the 10 minute mark when full-back Wes Goosen collected an Ulster clearance on halfway and tip-toed past a couple of red-shirted chasers then floated a lovely pass back inside to Graham in full throttle. A pack of wolves would not have stopped the Lions-snubbed winger as he cruised to the line, setting up an easy conversion for Ross Thompson.
Try No 2 on 16 minutes was a rather more muscular achievement, with Edinburgh rumbling a line-out maul to inches from the line beforeBradbury collected a feed fromPrice and bulldozed his way over.
Ulster made sure this wasn’t a procession by battling back into the contest and picking up a penalty try and a yellow-card for Graham when the winger deliberately knocked-on to prevent Jack Murphy‘s pass reaching the unmarked Zac Ward on the left touchline with the line at his mercy.
And with their tails-up, Ulster struck again a few minutes later when Edinburgh once again contributed to their own misfortune, this time Goosen made a meal of collecting Murphy’s well-judged kick into the corner, allowing Werner Kok to pick up on the five-metre line and bounce past Harry Paterson on his way to touching down.
Ewan Ashman‘s recent line-out woes carried on into this match with two tricky early throws sailing well above the fingrtips of the jumper at the tail, but he shrugged off that disappointment to put Edinburgh back into the lead by tidying up scrappy ball at the front off a touchline contest and showing plenty of pace and power to rampage home from 20-yards out.
Edinburgh threatened to finish the half with the bonus-point in the bag when Hamish Watson of all people launched a long clearance off turnover ball into an unmanned backfield and Price pressurised Nick Timoney into a sclaffed clearance, but James Lang couldn’t find Watson when he attempted to flick the ball back infield before it bounced into touch, and so the home side had to make do with a 19-12 lead at the turnaround.
After a wobbly start to the second half, Edinburgh built up a fair old head of steam, triggered by a weaving run out of defence from Paterson, amplified some excellent kicking from hand by Thompson, and a monstrous tag-team effort from Bradbury and Ben Muncaster to flatten and then trample over the top of Kok.
Graham came close to claiming his second only for Kok to rise to the occasion with a tackle which pushed a foot into touch just before the ball was grounded. Edinburgh kept their foot on the gas and they came close again a few minutes later in the other corner with a sweeping attack featuring Watson,Ritchie – just off the bench for his last Hive Stadium appearance for the club – and Lang, but were squeezed out inches from the line again.
It couldn’t go on like this without something giving, and all that pressure eventually told when Bradbury propelled himself through a forest of red jerseys to score just to the left of the posts following a close-range tap-and-go penalty form Pierre Schoeman.
Schoeman piled over the line for the next Edinburgh try, and Graham was desperately unlucky when he was sent clear by Paddy Harrison only for the pass to be deemed forward by referee Craig Evans.
Munster attempted to fight their way back into the contest, but lost control of the ball on the Edinburgh line and Watson showed superhuman abilities to chase the long clearance then win a jackal penalty on the Ulster 10-metre line.
Ulster did get a score back when Mark Bennett – another replacement making his last appearance at the Hive before moving on to pastures – broke the line off, but then lost the ball when he was blindsided by a huge tackle, and a quick transfer to the right touchline allowed Josh Postlethwaite to gallop home.
But Edinburgh and Graham had the final say . The winger danced to his second try on 73 minutes, and then he finished the game with a flourish, bringing the capacity crowd to their feet when he appeared off the breaking Paterson’s shoulder to streak under the posts, with both those late scores converted by Ben Healy.
Teams –
Edinburgh: W Goosen; D Graham, M Currie, J Lang (M Bennett 68), H Paterson; R Thompson (B Healy 72), A Price (C Shiel 72); P Schoeman (R Hislop 75), E Ashman (P Harrison 60), D Rae (J Sebastian 62), M Sykes, S Skinner (G Young, 75), B Muncaster (J Ritchie 50), H Watson, M Bradbury.
Ulster: M Lowry; W Kok, J Postlethwaite, S McCloskey, Z Ward (S Moore 56); J Murphy (A Morgan 61), N Doak (D Shanahan 2-14, 56); A Warwick (C Reid 45), R Herring (T Stewart 54), T O’Toole (S Wilson 54), K Treadwell (J McNabney 60), I Henderson, C Izuchukwu, N Timoney, D McCann.
Referee: Craig Evans (Wales)
Scorers –
Edinburgh: Tries: Graham 3, Bradbury 2, Ashman, Schoeman; Con: Thompson 4, Healy 2.
Ulster: Tries: Penalty Try, Kok, Postlethwaite.
Scoring sequence (Edinburgh first): 5-0; 7-0; 12-0; 12-7; 12-12; 17-12; 19-12 (h-t) 24-12; 26-12; 31-12; 33-12; 33-17; 38-17; 40-17; 45-17; 47-17.
Yellow card –
Edinburgh: Graham (24 mins)
Attendance: 7,989
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