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By Calum Crowe Capital players speak up to find second-half spark

EDINBURGH head coach Mike Blair insisted his players deserved all the credit after they gave an inspired half-time team-talk in the derby win over Glasgow Warriors.

Edinburgh beat their rivals 28-11 to overturn a first-leg deficit and win the 1872 Cup, as well as securing a place in next season’s Champions Cup.

The victory was built on a flying start to the second half, scoring two tries inside a 20-minute period as they turned the screw on their rivals.

Head coach Blair joked afterwards that he felt he hadn’t done himself justice at half-time. Instead, it was the players who delivered a rousing speech to inspire a terrific victory.

‘I said to Calum MacRae (assistant coach) as we walked up for the second half: “That’s the worst half-time speech that I’ve given”,’ said Blair.

‘So it shows that it had absolutely nothing to do with what happened in the second half because we were excellent.

‘The players started taking more responsibility in the half-time talk, which is something I’ve really tried to push. I want them running things.

‘When I went in, they were already starting to talk about what was important in the second half.

‘Everyone spoke. It wasn’t a rammy, but it wasn’t just one or two talking.

‘These games are difficult — they’re so often nip and tuck. But they’re also about momentum, and I felt that we stole momentum at the start of the second half.

‘They had a lot of possession and pressure on us for the first 10 minutes or so and we defended well and got the first points on the board.

‘It was a little bit of a contrast to the Scotstoun game, where they took a couple of turnover opportunities.

‘We probably created a couple more tonight, through our defensive pressure or errors from them, and we were able to get some points on the back of that. We were clinical.’

Edinburgh now go to South Africa to face the Stormers in the URC playoffs, while Glasgow head to Ireland to face table-topping Leinster.

Warriors head coach Danny

Wilson admitted his side hadn’t been anywhere near their best, with indiscipline a particular problem.

‘It was a disappointing result and performance,’ he said. ‘The numbers that really stood out were our penalty count and our turnover rate.

‘Especially the types of penalty we gave away, that was really unlike us. It’s an area we’ve improved a lot this season in terms of discipline.

‘But that went back the other way in this match. It was a derby and our discipline was poor.

‘When we did create some speed of ball and get in behind, we failed to execute. Our turnover rate was too high.

‘We also missed a few tackles just after half-time and gave a few penalties away on the bounce. They scored at a crucial time just after the interval, which gave them a cushion.

‘Although results haven’t always gone our way away from home, some of our performances have been good. But tonight wasn’t one of our better ones. We now go to a very tough venue for our next game.

‘I look at our season as a whole, about 80 per cent we were around the top four in the league, had some massive wins and played some good rugby.’

Rugby

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2022-05-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

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