Worcester all bluster as Edinburgh breeze to victory

The Edinburgh University men’s rugby firsts were up against some formidable forces last week, taking on a Worcester squad that was seeking revenge for a defeat earlier in the season. And if that wasn’t enough motivation, Worcester faced relegation if they lost this match, according to Edinburgh coach David Adamson.

Even in spite of this fired up opponent and harsh field conditions, Edinburgh jumped out with a strong start, with early first half tries from Rob Cuthbertson and James Walkinshaw.

But the rest of the game looked more like the close contest it should have been. The Worcester defense forced Edinburgh to the wings in order to make tries. As a result, Edinburgh failed to make any conversions from the wide kicks in particularly windy conditions.

“On a good day, you’d hope to make two of those [wide conversions],” Adamson said of the conditions’ effects. “But it’s the same for both teams, and they managed to get a couple kicks.”

Though it was a Worcester penalty after those first two tries that broke the shutout, it wasn’t just the kicks that made it a close game. The Worcester defense was working tenaciously in their defensive half. Edinburgh only found attacking success using skilful passing strategies, which were sometimes thwarted by fumbled catches.

Still, the best defense is a good attack, and in that respect Worcester wasn’t doing so well. When Cuthbertson broke through for his second try of the match, the only evidence of Worcester on the scoreboard was still the three-point penalty. When Ben Manning scored another try a few minutes later to bring the score to 20-3, it seemed that Edinburgh had finished the game.

The score still wasn’t as high as the team’s earlier 44-17 victory against Worcester though, and Worcester wasn’t quite finished yet. “The score kind of flattered us when we went down there,” Adamson said. “But we knew it was going to be a tough game today.”

Though slow to start, Worcester were putting up a fight by the end of the game. Manning’s was the last Edinburgh try of the game, and was followed by two Worcester tries and successful conversions. Suddenly the visitors were within one try of the hosts. Unfortunately for Worcester, the efforts were proved too little and too late: a drop goal from Edinburgh’s Rory Jones in the final minute widened the ultimate winning margin to 23-15.