On making an ‘almost winning return’ “You never want to lose. You play the game to win. Even when you lose graciously with all that effort, it’s still crap. You never learn to lose. “The fact that I was able to come back to this club and help out, and I want to help them […]
On the match and how Edinburgh battled to the final minutes “I am proud, proud of a lot of the effort and the commitment. “We just lacked a bit of precision under pressure, not throughout the 80 mins, but during certain periods which was frustrating but we played the last twelve minutes with Jaco in […]
On the last play and choosing to ‘take the win’ “We wanted the players to kick it out. We (coaches) made that call. You don’t always get these things right but our view ws that we had a yellow card, we were playing into a stiff breeze and we hd no momentum in our attack. […]
On the team’s fitness We looked to keep the ball in play, fatiguing them. Things always don’t go as you plan them but they definitely looked more fatigued at the end. We also kept our starters on for a fair bit of the game as well because we felt they were accustomed to the conditions […]
Edinburgh trailed 10-17 with 14 minutes to go before Connor Boyle’s pushover score and Harrison’s winner secured maximum points for the hosts who had lead 10-0 at half-time. “I’m proud. I genuinely believe that’s our best win of the season so far,” said Blair. “The position we put ourselves in, with a really stiff breeze […]
“That wasn’t quite what I was expecting when I woke up this morning,” laughed Cruse. “It was a great game to be involved in. Sometimes when you least expect it, it is the best thing to just throw yourself in and just get involved in. I am happy with that.” Cruse played a pivotal role […]
On Castres “I was really impressed with them. They’ve got size, they’ve got cohesion and they don’t do a huge amount of special things as a team, but they stick in there and their set-piece was good, so that put pressure on us, especially in the first half when the breeze was against us. “The […]
The Italian side held on for a 24-17 win with Rhyno Smith’s late score the difference in a back-and-forth battle at Stadio Monigo. “Yeah, it’s definitely disappointing,” said Blair. “We knew this was going to be a really tough game with the team that they picked. “Benetton were excellent and managed the game really well […]
Trailing 17-15 at the break, Edinburgh were able to switch up to a more direct and set-piece focussed style of play in the second period, with replacement hooker Paddy Harrison grabbing the game-sealing score late in the match. “We’re really pleased with the result. I think we showed different sides of our game,” said Blair. […]
The capital side had four scores and the bonus-point in the bag after 30 minutes following an impressive opening period, but a stop-start second-half meant Edinburgh were unable to accelerate through the gears as 14-man Zebre upped the intensity after the break. “I thought that when we were on it today, we were really good,” […]