Edinburgh 19-22 Sharks: Mike Blair defiant after slipping out of play-off places

Edinburgh head coach Mike Blair was “proud” of his understrength squad, despite a first defeat of the year to end a run of three straight wins.

His team, missing eight of the 10 players named in Scotland’s Six Nations squad, slipped out of the BKT United Rugby Championship play-off places after only collecting a losing bonus point in a 22-19 defeat by the Sharks in front of 6,791 fans at the DAM Health Stadium.

Grant Williams and Marnus Potgieter scored tries, with both converted by Curwin Bosch converting both to but the Sharks 14-0 up after 19 minutes before Edinburgh rallied. Adam McBurney scored a pair of tries and Henry Immelman also crossed, with Charlie Savala adding two conversions to send the hosts into the break 19-14 ahead. But the South Africans had the better of the second half and Kerron Van Vuuren's try and a penalty from Bosch secured victory.

“I am proud – proud of a lot of the effort and the commitment,” said Blair. The Edinburgh head coach added: “We just lacked a bit of precision under pressure, not throughout the 80 minutes, but during certain periods. I’m proud of the effort, but I would have been happier if we had got the win.

Edinburgh's Adam McBurney scores one of his two tries against Sharks at the DAM Health Stadium. Picture Mark Scates / SNS

“Playing against the Sharks, you know they will come at you with a lot of line speed and put you under pressure, and we did not handle that quite as well as we could. We gave Sharks a bit of field position, but then from the 20th to 40th minute we broke the game up, getting counter-attacks and some turnover ball when the Sharks were not as well set and we scored a couple of cracking tries.”

The visitors took the lead after five minutes when scrum-half Williams picked off a high pass in midfield by Edinburgh stand-off Savala and sprinted in from 40 metres, leaving an easy conversion for Bosch.

Edinburgh's worries deepened after quarter of an hour when Wes Goosen was shown a yellow card for illegally halting an attack close to his own line. The Sharks took advantage of the extra man within minutes, as a simple move down the line from a scrum ended in Potgieter scoring in the right corner. Bosch nailed the conversion from the touchline to put his team 14-0 up.

With nearly half an hour played, Edinburgh patiently made their way downfield, and after good work by Ben Vellacott and Savala, McBurney finished off after a one-two with Boan Venter. Savala converted.

Five minutes later, a brilliant 50-22 kick from Immelman turned defence into attack and gave the home side a lineout five metres from the Sharks line. McBurney grabbed his second from the maul, and Savala added the extras to level the scores.

It stayed that way for a minute. When a Sharks attack broke down, Goosen hacked ahead, Edinburgh seized the ball and Immelman finished off in the corner. Savala's kick was wide, but it was still a remarkable turnaround from 14-0 down to 19-14 down at the break.

The Sharks closed the gap to two points with a Bosch penalty and regained the lead with a close-range try by Van Vuuren. The conversion was missed, but despite some frenzied Edinburgh pressure deep into time added on he South Africans held on.

Scorers: Edinburgh: (19) 19 Tries: Adam McBurney (2), Henry Immelman. Conversions: Charlie Savala (2). Sharks: (14) 22. Tries: Grant Williams, Marnus Potgieter, Kerron van Vuuren. Conversions: Curwin Bosch (2) Penalty: Bosch

Edinburgh: Immelman, Goosen, Bennett, Lang, Blain, Savala, Vellacott; Venter, McBurney, McCallum, Sykes, Young, Haining, Watson, Mata. Replacements: Cherry, De Bruin, Atalifo, Hodgson, Muncaster, Shiel, Van der Walt, Hutchison.

Sharks: Fassi, Potgieter, Venter, Tapuai, Abrahams, Bosch, Williams; Nche, Van Vuuren, Du Toit, Andrews, Grobler, Venter, Venter, Buthelezi. Replacements: Jooste, Mchunu, Sadie, Hugo, Notsche, Wright, Cronje, Penxe.