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Edinburgh Rugby will need to pick up the pace at BT Murrayfield and try to pile on the points and the tries against Agen if they are to progress to the Challenge Cup quarter-finals. - 13/01/2016 13:04
Edinburgh Rugby will need to pick up the pace at BT Murrayfield and try to pile on the points and the tries against Agen if they are to progress to the Challenge Cup quarter-finals.
Last season’s runners-up are currently in a three-way tussle for the top spot in Pool 5 and need to bag a bonus point at home to try to bridge the two-point gap on table-topping Grenoble. As it stands, the Scottish capital city side have scored fewer tries than any of their rivals and are the only team in the pool without a bonus point.
The top two sides, Grenoble and London Irish meet at the Madejski Stadium in round five in a game that will have a huge bearing on which team goes into the final round as the top dog. Edinburgh have to travel to Grenoble in round six to complete their pool campaign.
Agen, ho were promoted back into the Top 14 last season, have been the whipping boys in Pool 5 and have yet to secure a win in their four matches. They currently prop up the table in the Top 14 and have yet to win away this season.
Edinburgh are once again rounding into good form at the start of the second half of the season and they followed up their back-to-back wins over Glasgow Warriors in the 1872 Cup games with a home triumph over Benetton Treviso last weekend.
Their form at Murrayfield this season has been outstanding and only Munster Rugby have managed to escape with a win at the start of November. They have moved up to third in the Guinness PRO12, but have only managed one try-bonus point in 12 outings in that competition.
When London Irish hosted Agen they ran in eight tries and Grenoble scored six against their French rivals at their home ground. Now it is Edinburgh’s chance to pile on the agony and stay in line for a second successive Challenge Cup qualification.
Scotland Sevens international Damien Hoyland scored twice in the 28-13 home win over Treviso and Edinburgh could well be looking to him to provide the spark to inspire a try-fest this weekend.
Match Facts
- Edinburgh have won 11 of their last 14 matches in the Challenge Cup, including a 27-6 win over Agen in their only previous encounter in this tier of European competition.
- Edinburgh have won their last seven home fixtures in the Challenge Cup, their last home loss coming in September 1997.
- Agen have lost their last four away matches, conceding exactly 48 points in each of their last two.
- Agen’s Marc Baget-Rabarou has made more carries (59) than any other player in the competition this season.
Pas concerné par la course à la qualification en European Rugby Challenge Cup
It may have taken the best part of five matches to come, but when Hamish Watson crossed for Edinburgh’s fourth try in the 73rd minute it brought a huge sigh of relief as last season’s Challenge Cup runners-up finally bagged a try bonus point.
Even tough they had only lost once in Pool 5 to stay very much in the hunt for a quarter-final ticket, Edinburgh were the lowest try scorers in their pool coming into the game and hadn’t been able to pick up a bonus point.
Agen arrived having lost all of their previous four matches, but determined to fight for a morale boosting win. They certainly made life difficult in the first-half, restricting the home side to a single Greig Tonks penalty until they lost prop Nicolas Chocou to a yellow card after half-an-hour.
That was the cue for Edinburgh to strike and after picking up a penalty at a five metre line-out they took a quick tap and go and No 8 Magnus Bradbury marked his first start in Europe with a try that made it 8-0 at the break.
Edinburgh lost their own prop, John Andress, to the sin-bin nine minutes into the second half and then had to wait until the game was almost an hour old before they grabbed a second try through replacement back row man Mike Cowman.
Now the race was on for the bonus point and two more tries flowed from Tonks in the 68th minute and and then from Watson five minutes later. It didn’t matter that none of the four tries were converted and the win moved Edinburgh to the top of the pool with a trip to Grenoble to come next week.
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