| Edinburgh Loss Leaves Championship Wide Open |
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| Monday, 02 March 2009 | |
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Edinburgh 0 Caledonia 10 A disappointing performance saw Edinburgh miss-fire as Caledonia left Dunbar with a deserved 10-0 victory in the second round of Under 18 Inter District Championship matches and, with Glasgow seeing off Border Reivers at Dumfries, left all four Districts level on one win each with one round to play. Edinburgh opened promisingly, exploiting the space out wide, however crucial passes failed to find their target and Caledonia were able to hold firm. It was not all one way traffic however and Edinburgh were fortunate to escape when Caledonia left wing Morrison spilled a pass with the line at his mercy midway through the half. With Caledonia confidence low following a heavy defeat the week before this miss could have proved pivotal to the outcome of the match, however the visitors continued to compete strongly, restricting Edinburgh to just one penalty attempt as half time approached, but Forbes pushed the kick to the right of the posts. Caledonia took control immediately after the break when they forced Edinburgh back into their twenty two. A scrum five metres out saw the ball moved right before an inside pass freed Morrison to race through a huge gap in the Edinburgh defence and dive over under the posts. Stuart Edwards added the conversion to put Caledonia 7-0 ahead. With supply messy at the back of the scrum, and Caledonia competing ferociously at the breakdown, Edinburgh struggled to hold onto possession and so were unable to build any pressure on the visitors. The home sides passing and running became lateral, providing inviting targets which the Caledonia defence were only too happy to home in on. The loss of stand-off Henry Oliver, quickly followed by his replacement Jamie Forbes, who had moved forward from full back, saw Edinburgh with scrum-half Murray Johnstone forced to into the stand-off role during the latter stages of the match, and with a sin-bin thrown in for good measure, Caledonia were able to turn the screw and pin Edinburgh back in their own half. Poor control and indiscipline in the Edinburgh twenty two prevented Caledonia increasing their lead until Edinburgh were penalised under their own posts in the final minute and Stuart Edwards made no mistake to secure the win. Despite the disappointing performance Edinburgh still have plenty to play for when they travel to Jed to play Border Reivers in a game that has been brought forward to Friday night (7.30pm kick-off) Edinburgh Team |
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