Edinburgh have all the hallmarks of a top-four side in this league this season and they have top-class players in almost every single line of their team. Playing them in Edinburgh when they are more or less fully loaded is one of the premier challenges in the URC. If you’re wondering why Munster have gone with Peter O’Mahony and Tadhg Beirne to start here again after last week, it’s because of the scale of this challenge combined with our need to hoover up points in the race for the top 8. It’s that simple.
We’re one win from jostling our way to 7th with the right results but, by the same token, we’re a loss away from 13th/14th. That’s how tight the middle rungs of the URC ladder are at the moment so every point, every win and every loss matters.
The win over Connacht was badly needed, yes, but if we can pick up points at one of the Toughest Places To Go in the URC we’ll have something that not many other sides will manage as the season progresses.
Even then though, you could probably cast this game as the Best Attack In the League against one of the best defences but when you look a little closer at Edinburgh’s 37 tries – joint most with Leinster – seven of them were scored in blow out wins against a demoralised Dragons side on the opening day of the season, and fifteen were scored against Benetton and Zebre. Now you might say, we’re not scoring seven tries against the Dragons or blowing Zebre out of it OR beating Cardiff in Cardiff – the best result of Edinburgh’s season so far, for me – and you’d be right, but it does give you some context as to how they got where they are in this season’s URC.
But the facts are the facts – nobody has beaten more defenders than Edinburgh. Nobody has scored more tries or beaten more defenders than Darcy Graham. They have the second highest lineout completion rate in the competition and a rock solid scrum.
Make no mistake, this is a colossal challenge.
Edinburgh: 15. Wes Goosen, 14. Darcy Graham, 13. Mark Bennett, 12. Chris Dean, 11. Duhan van der Merwe; 10. Blair Kinghorn, 9. Ben Vellacott; 1. Pierre Schoeman, 2. Patrick Harrison, 3. Luan de Bruin, 4. Jamie Hodgson, 5. Grant Gilchrist, 6. Jamie Ritchie, 7. Luke Crosbie, 8. Viliame Mata
Replacements: 16. Tom Cruse, 17. Boan Venter, 18. WP Nel, 19. Marshall Sykes, 20. Nick Haining, 21. Charlie Shiel, 22. Jaco van der Walt, 23. James Lang
When I saw that Mathieu Raynal was going to be refereeing this game I knew that we’d be starting with what I would describe as our “scrummaging” front row without doubt and, lo and behold, there they are. Keeping Edinburgh’s heavy scrum out of Raynal’s good books in the first 50 minutes of this game will be a key concern for Munster and Ryan, in particular, will be tasked with keeping Schoeman out of the game.
Looking at Edinburgh’s metrics this season is actually pretty intimidating on all counts but they are far from unbeatable with the right approach.
Understanding how to beat Edinburgh is rooted in understanding their kicking game, its quirks and what it means about their style of play.
Edinburgh is an on-ball team. What does this mean? They kick way less frequently and way shorter than everyone else in the league bar two sides – Glasgow and Zebre. From this, I think we can infer a larger Scottish Way that means a heavy on-ball focus but how do you play a side like this?
The first route would be to go heavy on counter-transition but this is not without massive risk. If Edinburgh don’t kick that often and, when they do, they kick short it makes sense to use some of your own Q2 possession to drive it deep into their backfield because IF you can track the receiver and set a ruck point, you can bait Edinburgh into playing a tonne of high-risk phase play inside their own 10m line. With a balanced breakdown approach that only targets the most obvious offensive rucks, you can hurt Edinburgh on their own possession by forcing errors and winning penalties.
Kick too long to Darcy Graham and Duhan Van Der Merwe, however, and you risk getting burned on the outside or run over on deep runbacks.
Beating Edinburgh is a balancing act between letting them play around the halfway line, choking their attempts to use Duhan to get wide, establishing ruck points over the gain line and balancing your own defensive approach between high line speed, packing the line and picking your moments at the breakdown to bring their ruck completion rate below 95%.
If you can be accurate there – as well as exposing Duhan Van Der Merwe and Darcy Graham to kick balls bouncing in behind them at a tight angle, there are opportunities to stress Edinburgh at the lineout maul and on the break targeting Kinghorn and the lateral movement of Dean and Lang.
With the right approach, we can keep Edinburgh at the range we want them at, minimize their threats and, in a way, off-ball them to death here. It’s a big game, with a lot on the line, so let’s see how it plays out.
