Mike Blair insists wholesale changes no excuse after Edinburgh Rugby throw away lead after prop Boan Venter scores hat-trick

Edinburgh Rugby head coach Mike Blair said the changes he had to make to his team was “no excuse” after his team’s second league defeat of the season.
Edinburgh loosehead prop Boan Venter scored a hat-trick of tries but ended up on the losing sideEdinburgh loosehead prop Boan Venter scored a hat-trick of tries but ended up on the losing side
Edinburgh loosehead prop Boan Venter scored a hat-trick of tries but ended up on the losing side

Loosehead prop Boan Venter scored a hat-trick of tries and for long enough Edinburgh looked to be on course for a first win in Swansea since 2009, but went home with only a losing bonus point as Ospreys triumphed 23-19.

Without most of his Scotland contingent, Blair had to make wholesale changes to the team but insisted the line up was strong enough to win the game and should have seen it out after leading 14-3 at half time.

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“It does not come down to one thing, but I thought we had found weaknesses in the opposition but did not stick to that,” he said.

“It can be a bit mixed when you have guys coming back in but that is not an excuse.

“We had a team out there which could have won the game, but we did not execute.”

Scotland internationals Jaco van der Walt, Henry Pyrgos, Dave Cherry, Marshall Sykes and Magnus Bradbury started for Edinburgh, but there were nine changes to the side that hammered Brive in the Challenge Cup.

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Blair added: “We are really disappointed. We had the upper hand with the Ospreys not challenging us when playing from deeper, so I was disappointed that in the second half we gave them some easy ins.

“There were elements through the game we could have done better.

“We gave too many penalties away and could have been penalised for a couple of others as well.”