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The Detail

Edinburgh don’t have any glaring weaknesses in their game these days. Overall, they have a lack of top quality when it comes to playing the likes of Munster/Leinster/Glasgow/Scarlets in a playoff game but they have more than enough to challenge the Munster side they’ll be playing tonight.

One thing that Richard Cockerill has brought to Edinburgh since he’s joined them is a grit and resilience that has them performing at a level they haven’t seen in years. The days of big blowouts against Edinburgh are mostly over and done with, and a lot of that can be credited to the uptick in aggression that Cockerill has brought to their game. They aren’t just “grit” though. Much of their resurgence has been down to a marked improvement in their attacking strategy.

Note: I’ve watched them Edinburgh in detail against Ulster, Leinster and Glasgow but I’m mainly going to be using footage from the Glasgow game due to the quality of the footage of the other two games. 

Wide Attack & Second Layers

As would be true for Scottish rugby in general at the moment, Edinburgh don’t really have any dynamic ball carriers that demand special attention. They aren’t weak in possession in the middle of the field for certain, but in what I’ve seen to date they don’t really like spending a lot of time attacking the middle of the pitch around the fringes unless they think they have a significant power advantage there.

I don’t think they’ll assume to have such an advantage against Munster, so I think they’ll use their wider set-up to attack the #13 channel fairly regularly and our defensive reset after they surge in the wide areas.

When Edinburgh go tight on their set-up phases, it’ll be to the likes of Bradbury and Mata. They like to construct a lot of their punch phases like this, with a distinctive second layer.

They use Hidalgo-Clyne to tie in pillar defenders before releasing to the narrow pod of three forwards, who’ll look to get any kind of gainline and retention to release plays like this;

Look Van Der Walt (Red #10) getting onto the ball in the wider channel rather than at first receiver. This is a common enough place for him to pop up as it limits his weaknesses which I’d rate mainly as his pace on the ball and his strength on the gainline. Edinburgh like to bring him into big openside plays from the second layer rather than having him at first-receiver where he can be a little predictable.

When Edinburgh can get Van Der Walt surging onto the ball from the second layer, his excellent passing and generally good decision making can open up a lot of opportunities for the pacey, powerful runners Edinburgh have stacked in the midfield and outside backs.

Edinburgh will look to use their tight forwards handing to open up space to attack in the 15m channel, where they’ll stack the likes of Hardie and Mata alongside the powerful Van Der Merwe to create scenarios like this.

Van Der Merwe, in particular, is worth keeping an eye on. Their blindside winger is incredibly powerful in contact and gives them a number of bailout options off mauls and strike running options all over the pitch. He’s 6’4″, just over 14 stone and incredibly hard to put down in the tight, let alone in wider areas of the pitch.

His kicking game is a bit of a weakness, though, so Munster should be able to target his exit with some clever kicking.

Expect to see a lot of intricate hands in the wide areas of the pitch between Mata, Hardie and Van Der Walt, as they managed this kind of thing in all of the games I saw them play and, given the quality of the Murrayfield surface, I’d expect them to look to duplicate that against Munster.

Conor Oliver will be the key to defending these scenarios. His pace and agility over the ball will be a key source of potential penalties and, most of the time, slowing down Edinburgh to help our defensive reset and deny them tempo.

Where Are They Weak?

Edinburgh have five main areas that I’d look to attack; their defensive fold on multiphase, their propensity to double up on ball carriers when they’re worried about getting run over in the middle of the pitch, their scrum, their fringe defence, and their maul defence. Oh – and kicking.

Defensive Fold On Multiphase / Double Up On Carriers

Against Ulster and Leinster in particular, Edinburgh tended to double up their tacklers on the forwards or, in Ulster’s case, the likes of Stuart McCloskey. Edinburgh didn’t really do this against Glasgow in either game, which I think relates directly to the Warriors long-held problem with ball carrying forwards.

Look at the way Edinburgh narrow up in contact on this big openside set against Ulster;

They’re wary of getting beaten man for man by Ulster’s bigger forwards and midfield. Watch this next set for another example;

They’re looking for big, statement two-man hits on Ulster’s big carriers but look how the pullback in the wide area unlocked a 3-1 overlap on Van Der Merwe. If Munster can mix up this kind of width and use the likes of Copeland and Kleyn on that second or third phase, we could tempt a narrow, multi-man blitz onto the ball that could be exploited with a pass into the second layer as Ulster did above.

Edinburgh have a tendency to mess up their defensive fold on quick, multiphase ball that’s tied into their two-man tackle strategy on “big” teams. They can often get caught over manning a ruck they’ve already lost and that can expose them to shallow numbers in the line and even more narrowing, like here;

If you can align outside Edinburgh’s edge defender as above, you can get good ruck position beyond the gainline and with a fragmented defensive line to attack the reverse play.

They showed a real lack of ability to deal with Finn Russell’s work flat to the gain line against Glasgow in particular, as it tended to put their midfield defence under positional and physical pressure. Hanrahan can certainly play that way, and we’ll need him breaking every so often to stop Edinburgh getting a rhythm on their blitz and soft drift, which has shown to be really effective if they can pressure the pass back.

Fringe Defence 

I’m not going to upload 20mb+ GIFs of Edinburgh being driven back on tight, fringe carriers but Glasgow, Ulster and Leinster all found success attacking with tempo around the side of the ruck. Edinburgh consistently lost ground when the carries picked up the pace and Glasgow found a lot of joy in this area. They would have had a lot more if they stopped giving away penalties for taking the man out off the ball but it was notable how much ground Edinburgh seemed to lose in the tight exchanges.

The Maul/Scrum/Kicking

Edinburgh’s scrum isn’t bad, by any means, but it isn’t a massive strength of their game and is vulnerable to getting pumped. The way Edinburgh play lends itself to a lot of scrummaging scenarios if they don’t have accuracy in what they’re doing, which can be the case on some of their wider plays.

The maul is a consistent weakness for Edinburgh on both sides of the ball. As per usual, they’re dangerous from 5m out but most teams are. On their own ball, they’re a little slow in the setup and vulnerable to getting turned and stuffed against a big maul defence like Munster have. The winger, Van Der Merwe, should be considered a constant threat when they break from the maul. They’ll generally use a maul to exit out of their own 22 if they’re forced to throw there.

Edinburgh don’t like to play too much high-risk rugby on their exits and when they do exit it’s generally into the stands, so there’s a lot of value for Munster in kicking to the space that Edinburgh tend to leave in their backfield. You can see it in the Leinster GIF above and here in this instance against Ulster;

Edinburgh tend to keep three guys in the backfield against teams who box kick (like Munster) but you can tempt their wingers out of position if you get some good ground in midfield. Again; playing nice and flat on your possession or pulling back the ball near the last forward defender is the key to getting that movement in the backfield.

Once you get their backfield cover moving, you’ll get a chance to kick for position, knowing that Edinburgh will tend to exit into the stands.

This game will be a good examination of where Hanrahan’s and Scannell’s kicking game is at. If they can get Edinburgh’s wingers turning – Van Der Merwe in particular – they can squeeze the exit and force a poor kick out of Edinburgh’s back three. Look for Scannell’s left-footed “wiper” kick off a wide scrum to be particularly effective here.

If you can get Edinburgh throwing inside their own 22 (they’ll probably go to Toolis a lot in this one) you can be fairly sure that they’ll look to maul for a bit of position before exiting fairly conservatively most of the time.

From there, you can attack Edinburgh through the lineout maul. Edinburgh are really good at challenging in the air – through Toolis, usually – but I have seen a weakness in their maul defence that Glasgow, Leinster and even Ulster managed to press them on. Sherry’s throwing will need to spot on to avoid the challenge of Toolis, but if we get the ball down we should have an advantage there as long we don’t let Edinburgh in around the corner, as they managed repeatedly against Ulster. Shove on shove, we have the power to go through them.

Accuracy, patience and error-free rugby is the key to getting a result from a Munster perspective but hold onto your hats – this could be a sticky one.

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