{"id":147947,"date":"2025-05-31T22:57:23","date_gmt":"2025-05-31T22:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/147947\/"},"modified":"2025-05-31T22:57:23","modified_gmt":"2025-05-31T22:57:23","slug":"edinburgh-player-ratings-lion-struggles-against-south-african-opposition-planet-rugby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/147947\/","title":{"rendered":"Edinburgh player ratings: Lion struggles against South African opposition : Planet Rugby"},"content":{"rendered":"

Edinburgh put in a spirited performance against the Bulls in Saturday\u2019s URC play-off match but they came up short as the South African side showed their class, winning 42-33.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how we rated the players<\/p>\n

15 Wes Goosen: <\/strong>Regularly threatening the Bulls defence from deep, it was a busy afternoon for the South African-born full-back. He took both of his tries well, and will be proud of his performance. 7<\/b><\/p>\n

14 Darcy Graham: <\/strong>His recent British and Irish Lions exclusion has done nothing to dent his confidence. After taking a nasty knock to the head early in the first half, the flying Scotsman often ran hard down the right wing, keeping the Bulls defence on their toes with regular kicks over the top. 6<\/b><\/p>\n

13 Matt Currie: <\/strong>The\u00a0<\/strong>hard running outside centre created space for the wide men throughout this contest and proved to be a key factor in generating gainline success, particularly in the first half. 6<\/b><\/p>\n

12 James Lang<\/strong>: Often applied as the second playmaker, Lang<\/a> worked really well with his centre partner to ensure that the Edinburgh lines of attack were significantly blurred. On defence he most notably ripped the ball from a Bulls player in his own 22 to close off the first half. 6<\/b><\/p>\n

11 Harry Paterson:<\/strong>\u00a0With ball in hand he looked dangerous, but defensively he was overwhelmed by the multitude of attacking avenues from the South African side. He did make a good breakthrough early in the game which helped set Edinburgh<\/a> up on the attack. 5<\/b><\/p>\n

10 Ross Thompson: <\/strong>It was a\u00a0very assured performance by the Scotland international. He kicked well, scored two close range tries and dictated the Edinburgh attack. He faded somewhat in the second half, however. 6<\/b><\/p>\n

9 Ali Price: <\/strong>The former British and Irish Lion provided fast ball from the base throughout, dictating his team\u2019s play and proving to be a major player in Edinburgh\u2019s attempted comeback. 6<\/b><\/p>\n

\"Planet<\/p>\n

Bulls player ratings: Willie le Roux \u2018grabs game by the throat\u2019 as prop stars \u2018set the tone\u2019 for famous comeback<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

8 Magnus Bradbury:<\/strong>\u00a0A strangely mixed bag by the giant number 8. His evasive running, regular touches and huge hits made him a standout performer in the first half. His second half started miserably, though. Three simple knock-ons within the space of 15 minutes made for some painful watching. He did recover himself eventually, however, and proved to be instrumental in an Edinburgh try in the left-hand corner.\u00a07<\/b><\/p>\n

7 Hamish Watson: <\/strong>A proper defensive showing. Topped the tackle count with 18, six more than anyone else. 7<\/b><\/p>\n

6 Jamie Ritchie: <\/strong>Took man out in the air, giving away a needless penalty, missed a couple of vital tackles and struggled in the lineout. A very disappointing showing by the Edinburgh captain.\u00a03<\/b><\/p>\n

5 Sam Skinner: <\/strong>It was a very mundane performance from the giant second row. Whilst he didn\u2019t do anything particularly wrong, he just didn\u2019t do very much at all.\u00a05<\/b><\/p>\n

4 Marshall Sykes:<\/strong>\u00a0Unlike his lock partner, Sykes was fully involved in the game, making plenty of tackles and helping to sure up the lineout when it wasn\u2019t working.\u00a06<\/strong><\/p>\n

3 D\u2019Arcy Rae: <\/strong>Part of a front row that looked truly out of their depth against their dominant South African opposition. Rae looked\u00a0to be under pressure in the scrum throughout the match, notably giving away a scrum penalty early in the second half which would eventually lead to a Bulls try. 4<\/b><\/p>\n

2 Ewan Ashman: <\/strong>He made a\u00a0huge first hit to set the tempo, and continued to put his body on the line for the rest of the match. He was found out in the set piece, though, regularly being turned over in the scrum and once overthrew a simple lineout. 5<\/b><\/p>\n

1\u00a0 Pierre Schoeman:<\/strong>\u00a0Like his prop partner, he was dominated in the scrum. Not the showing a Lions hopeful will have wanted heading into the summer tour.\u00a04<\/b><\/p>\n

Replacements: <\/strong>When\u00a0Boan Venter and Javan Sebastian initially come on, the scrum looked to take an even bigger beating than it had previously, but soon the freshness of these two, plus the other introductions, allowed Edinburgh to fight back and push the Bulls to a tight and nervy finish.\u00a08<\/strong><\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0Top 10 highest paid rugby union players as Richie Mo\u2019unga TRIPLES salary in Japan but misses out on number one spot<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edinburgh put in a spirited performance against the Bulls in Saturday\u2019s URC play-off match but they came up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,8924,1102,126,4884,37132,225,18797,12,33923,712,16,15,4510],"class_list":{"0":"post-147947","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-bulls","10":"tag-edinburgh","11":"tag-features","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-hamish-watson","14":"tag-home-page","15":"tag-jamie-ritchie","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-pierre-schoeman","18":"tag-scotland","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-united-rugby-championship"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114604922874769372","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}