Leinster 19-18 Edinburgh: Young Leinster side make Edinburgh pay for errors

THIS was a huge opportunity wasted by Edinburgh as they were overturned by Leinster's second string.

It may be a reflection of the strength in depth at the Dublin club but, equally, it shows the wayward path Rob Moffat's men have suddenly stumbled down. Leinster jump to fifth, while Edinburgh remain eighth, 13 points adrift of Magners League leaders Munster.

When Moffat looks back at the DVD he will be understandably disgusted with the number of basic mistakes as Edinburgh attempted to outclass a largely unknown group of young, inexperienced opponents.

There were no British Lions on show for Leinster with 11 regulars absent mainly due to international call-ups (Ireland face South Africa this Saturday at the Aviva Stradium).

So, instead of the feared midfield partnership of Brian O'Driscoll and Gordon D'Arcy see Eoin O'Malley and Fergus McFadden. No Jamie Heaslip, Jonny Sexton, Rob Kearney, Luke Fitzgerald, Eoin Reddan, Sean O'Brien or Cian Healy either. And still Edinburgh failed to show the necessary composure to take the four points on offer here.

"It is a huge opportunity missed," admitted Chris Patterson, who scored all but five of Edinburgh's points.

"So many individual errors basically strangled our own game. Credit to Leinster, no matter who they field they are a hard side to play against, they are cheered on here by the (16,786) crowd, so it is a tough ask but it was definitely one, if we had cut out the mistakes, we could have come away with a victory."

They weren't helped by the free spirited approach adopted by Joe Schmidt's new look Leinster side, who were ably marshaled by Leo Cullen and man of the match Richard Strauss at hooker.

A decisive moment came on 51 minutes. Patterson had just reduced arrears to 11-16 as David Young arrived on the pitch as a replacement tight head prop for Geoff Cross. But within seconds Young was sent to the sin bin as Italian referee Carlo Damasco made a mess of an incident involving Ross Ford and Leinster scrum-half Paul O'Donohoe.

Damasco wrongly identified Young as the culprit. As a result, No. 8 Netani Talei was also hauled off to facilitate the scrums.

Isa Nacewa kicked the resulting penalty to push Leinster eight points clear but Ross immediately atoned for the loss of the strong-running Talei by bursting through the Leinster midfield on a powerful drive into the 22. From the recycle Patterson picked a perfect line to fly under the posts unopposed.

The fullback converted his own try to leave it at 18-19 entering the last quarter. The return of Young and Talei duly saw Edinburgh lift the tempo but poor decision making and silly handling errors betrayed them.

"From the very beginning we didn't really give ourselves a chance," said Ford.

"We didn't build too many phases, didn't keep the ball for long enough in the first half to put any pressure on them.

"We did score a good try but we let them back into the game with easy penalties and silly mistakes. Wrong decisions put to the sword all the hard work that we had done to get into those areas. We have to be more clinical and keep a calm head when we are in those attacking positions."

Edinburgh grabbed the only try of the first half when Mike Blair's clever chip put Tim Visser in a straight sprint to the line with Strauss.The big Dutch winger easily won the mismatch to touch down in the corner.

Leinster almost hit back immediately when Ian Madigan's break and offload saw teenage winger Andrew Conway held up just shy of the white wash.

Cullen insisted Damasco went to the Television Match Official. The Italian eventually opted for a Leinster penalty, confusing everyone some more, which Nacewa converted to make it 9-8 at the interval.

Leinster stretched their lead six minutes into the second-half when more impressive play-making from Madigan at fly-half saw Nathan Hines put Conway over down the short-side for a try that, ultimately, swung the result to the home team.

Scorers:

Leinster: Try: Conway. Pens: Nacewa (4). Con: Nacewa.

Edinburgh: Tries: Visser, Paterson. Pens: Paterson (2). Con: Paterson.

Leinster: I Nacewa; S Horgan, E O'Malley, F McFadden, A Conway; I Madigan (S Berne 78), P O'Donohoe (I Boss 54); H van der Merwe, R Strauss, M Ross, L Cullen (capt), N Hines, D Ryan, S Keogh (R Ruddock 68), S Jennings.

Edinburgh: C Paterson; J Thompson, A Grove, J Houston (D Bishop 68), T Visser; A Blair, M Blair (G Laidlaw 59); A Jacobsen (K Traynor 62), R Ford, G Cross (D Young 51), S Macleod, E Lozada (C Hamilton 70), R Grant (capt), N Talei (S Newlands 68), R Rennie.

Referee: C Damasco (Italy).

"We let them back into the game with easy penalties and silly mistakes"

Ross Ford