Edinburgh fall short in 1872 Cup thriller

  • 8 May 2021

Edinburgh fell just short in a seven-try thriller as Glasgow Warriors claimed victory to lift the 1872 Cup for the first time since 2016-17.

Richard Cockerill’s team had held the inter-city silverware for the last three years but tries from Cole Forbes, Fotu Lokotui, Fraser Brown and Kyle Steyn handed Warriors a 29-19 win.

Edinburgh’s forward power saw Dave Cherry, Pierre Schoeman and Stuart McInally crash over but their late charge fell flat at Scotstoun.

In a bad-tempered affair, both teams made use of the new captain’s challenge rule being trialled in the Guinness PRO14 Rainbow Cup to successfully alert referee Adam Jones to red card offences, with Edinburgh’s Mark Bennett and Warriors prop Oli Kebble sent off.

With Glasgow already leading through a Ross Thompson penalty, Ali Price's short-ball for Forbes caught Edinburgh completely by surprise as the full-back darted past the sleeping WP Nel to score.

But the first signs that disciplinary standards would slip came after 20 minutes as Fraser Brown’s needless shove on Van der Merwe when Glasgow had already won a penalty proved costly.

It gave the visitors field position in the Warriors 22 and they made the most of their territory gain as Cherry scored off a well-worked line-out maul.

Glasgow went straight up the pitch to score again 90 seconds later as Fotu Lokotui wriggled over.

But when Warriors lock Rob Harley was sin-binned after ignoring repeated warnings about breakdown infringements, Schoeman was able to take advantage to squeeze over for another Edinburgh score.

Then came the TMO drama as Glasgow skipper Brown used the most of his new powers to alert the officials to Bennett’s high hit on Price.

Harley was just making his way back on before the interval when Glasgow were back to 14 men as Edinburgh captain Grant Gilchrist complained about Kebble’s elbow on Henry Pyrgos.

However Fraser Brown crashed over between the posts for Glasgow’s third to give his side a 24-14 lead at the break.

The rule experiment meant both sides were able to replace their dismissed players after a 20-minute period – but Glasgow had already chalked up the bonus point by then as Forbes’ long pass found the unmarked Steyn to dot down in the corner.

Edinburgh hit back with their third as McInally hared off the back of a maul to score down the short side.

They were given late hope when Richie Gray was sin-binned as Warriors coughed up penalty after penalty. But McInally was denied his second by Ratu Tagive’s last-gasp challenge.

live commentary 8:15 PM Friday 7 May 2021

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