Leinster v Edinburgh 31/1/26

A Never-ending Story

Freddy Douglas. I wanted to start with a positive and that’s the only thing I could think of.

If Edinburgh had managed to score a try or kick a penalty in the last 10 minutes of our game v Bulls and we won despite having had only 22% territory in the second half then I feel certain that Chris Paterson would have awarded the man of the match award to Freddy.

Another game another 5 turnovers many of which were crucial in keeping us in the game.

Unfortunately despite not being behind until the 69th minute he was denied that accolade as well as the match points by our continued attack frailties.

The biggest problem in this particular game though was that our normal forward dominance was neutralised by Bulls. They didn’t overpower Edinburgh but were robust enough that in conjunction with our unimaginative attack they were able to do enough to enough to take the points.

Sitting in the Murrayfield stand it was hard to say much about how the second half unfolded so little of it was in the Bulls half but when reviewing it later it can’t be ignored that Bulls winning try was extremely doubtful. The referee judged it to be held up and his on-field decision was no try. The TMO judged the try to have been scored. There was nothing ‘clear and obvious’ in the footage to inform that decision.

But, and it’s a big but, if you spend 78% of the second half in your own half of the field and don’t score a point in the entire half you get what you deserve.

Bottom line is that after 10 rounds of the URC we have 18 points and only 3 wins and we are 12th. That’s the worst total since 2016. Even if you imagine we had won our postponed game v Ulster it would still be our worst total since 2020.

And the statistics would suggest that it’s only going to get tougher as we head to Ireland this week to take on Leinster.

We haven’t won against them away since 2005 and haven’t beaten them at any venue since 2019. Our win percentage against them is 32%.

After a slow start to their season Leinster have now won their last 10 games in a row in all competitions.

They are currently 3rd in the URC table and are also 3rd seeds for their upcoming Round of 16 in The Champions Cup and as 14th seeds we are due to face them in Dublin again in early April.

If that’s not enough to give you the fear they have scored 52 tries this season compared to Edinburgh’s 36.

We came close on our last outing against this blue shirted behemoth when we went down 31-33 at the Hive in September 2024. Five tries apiece and only 1 missed conversion making the difference.

In what is becoming a regular occurrence we lost a player due to be in the 23 prior to the start of the match and he was replaced by Matt Scott who then ended up playing 60 odd minutes due to a first half injury to Matt Currie.

The player injured pre-match was Emiliano Boffelli and apart from a first half v Zebre a few months later that was sadly the last time the Argentinian star was listed on an Edinburgh team sheet.

Leinster have a fairly large injury list. It’s not on Edinburgh levels but includes the likes of Jordan Larmour, Robbie Henshaw, Andrew Porter and Rabah Slimani. Add to that there are 17 Leinster players in the Ireland squad.

They have made 12 changes in all from the team that beat Connacht last week with only RG Snyman, wing Joshua Kenny and Charlie Tector remaining in the starting 15.

Tector was in Leinster’s academy the last time we faced them. He scored against us that night and is currently sitting 4th In Leinster’s try scoring chart for this season. He moves from 12 to 10 for this game.

There’s a few in their 15 with single digit appearances with centre Ciaran Mangan and prop Andrew Sparrow making their first starts. Not all those single digit players are novices however as All Black Rieko Ioane with 6 appearances is at centre.

There are 4 players aged 22 and under with only 1 previous appearance each for on the Leinster bench.

With only Pierre Schoeman, Ewan Ashman, D’arcy Rae, Grant Gilchrist, and Darcy Graham retained by the Scotland squad finally our lack of results is working in our favour.

Magnus Bradbury, Freddy Douglas and Duhan van Der Merwe have been released and are all in our starting XV.

It’s a powerful front row that we are starting with and at a guess we’ve gone with Jerry Blyth-Lafferty to start so that the replacement front row has Harri Morris in it to bring a bit of experience on alongside Mikey Jones and Ollie Blyth-Lafferty who have only 4 and 8 appearances respectively. This is only Jerry Blyth-Lafferty’s second cap and his first start for Edinburgh so it’s a first outing for this trio.

Liam McConnell was in the Scotland squad but has picked up a rib injury so is unavailable regardless. Ben Muncaster steps in with Tom Dodd and Connor Boyle on the bench providing back row cover.

The only change in the backs is that Malelili Satala starts on the right wing with Darcy away on Scotland duty. I hope he gets to see the ball a bit this week. His work rate against Bath has certainly earned him this start.

This is a decent side that Edinburgh are putting out for this game, better than I expected and the Leinster side, a few notables aside is largely unknown to me. However it has to be remembered that the reason we are able to field a side like this is that they haven’t really been setting the heather alight and Leinster have great depth. Just because some of their players are not household names right now they probably will be in the future.

It has raised a little hope though at a time of the season when most of us are trying to keep a tight rein on that emotion in preparation for the 6N. We haven’t won against Leinster in our last 6 encounters. The only other club we can say that we went through a six in a row loss list to is Ulster and that was back between 2012-2015. The Leinster tale of woe is current.

Lose and Leinster will be the only side we’ve lost to 7 times in a row.

Win and we can add to that hope and put an end to that story.