URC: Edinburgh v Zebre: Sean Everitt's side out-gunned by fired up visitors

02/14/2025 05:24 PM

Edinburgh 17

Zebre 22

DAVID BARNES @ Hive Stadium

THERE was something depressingly predictable about this performance and outcome. There was no lack workmanlike endeavour but the ruthlessness and brutality required to win a game against a fired-up opposition who were determined to build on their first away win since 2019 in their last match against Ulster a fortnight ago, and who attacked the physical exchanges with ferocious relish.

A losing bonus point leaved Edinburgh in eighth place in the URC table, just two points ahead of Ospreys, so there is still plenty to play for. But the ongoing sense of drift is a big concern.

“Yeah, really disappointing,” sighed Edinburgh head coach Sean Everitt after the final whistle, with a now familiar tone of weary resignation, “We knew what was coming and they gave us what we expected. What we didn’t match tonight was their physicality. They overpowered us at the breakdown [and] won many turnovers there. We couldn’t get on the front foot.”

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“We had possession in the game. We had 61 percent possession. But they kept on knocking us down on the gain-line. We didn’t handle that pressure well enough.

“It’s not self-belief and motivation,” he argued. “It’s about going to plan B when you’re under pressure. When you start losing momentum in the game, you’ve got to transfer the pressure. So it’s probably more of a game management situation. Something that we pride ourselves on.

“We did get better in the second half, believe it or not. But you’ve also got to stop momentum and we didn’t do that tonight. They had a set-piece scrum and they got good momentum from that and they managed to score.  Later in the second half, they mauled us 15 metres in our 22. We’ve got to be better in that department.

“We’ll do a full assessment when we get back. We’ve got to go back to the drawing board.  Edinburgh are not dead in this competition. We’ve got to pick ourselves up and move forward. I don’t think we’ll have to delve into it too much. We lost a physical battle as well.”

Everitt also conceded that Edinburgh’s lack of variation during a couple of long periods battering at the Zebre line is a cause of frustration.

“Unfortunately, we got two penalties in a row on their five metres and let them off the hook.  That’s probably where we lost the game,” he said. “I think we probably carried too many times in the forwards. The backs have got to pull the trigger when they see that there’s numerical advantage.
We’ll have a look at that to see if we can do better.”

“We put ourselves in a position to score a couple of times.Unfortunately, when we did get over the line, we didn’t then get out of our half [after the restart]/ We talk about winning the kick cycle and that is not only when you exit, it’s about when you win the ball back in your own half to be able to put them under pressure in their half. We didn’t do that enough.”

The one silver-lining for Everitt and Edinburgh was that Argentinean back-three man Emiliano Boffelli manage just over half a game, in his comeback after nine months out of action with a back injury.

“I’m not glad that he came through the game. He’s going to be a bit sore but nothing more than you’d expect.  I think he’s a bit tight, which is probably normal considering his circumstances and the back injury that he had,” said Everitt.

Zebre drew first blood when some neat handing created an opportunity on the left, which full-back Geronimo Prisciantelli exploited to the full, by fixing the last defender and then sending winger Jacopo Trulla over with an expertly timed pass, but it was a short lived visiting lead on this occasion, with Ross McCann evening it up when he collected the ball from Boffelli on the touchline then exhibited great footwork to step back inside three defenders and good power carry the tackler over the line with him. Both conversions were off target meaning it was 5-5 with 12 minutes played.

Referee Andrew Brace spent a long time reviewing the video evidence before deciding that Boffelli had been offside when he tackled Gonzalo Garcia as the Zebre scrum-half tried to snipe down a narrow blindside after some more strong carrying from Prisciantelli had taken the visitors back into the strike zone, but there was no penalty try because Marshall Sykes was judged to have the try-scoring opportunity covered. It was, however, only a temporary postponement of the Italians’ second score, with Garcia slipping out of Glen Young’s tackle and stretching over the line, to set up an easy conversion for Giacomo Da Re.

The hosts were then reduced tp 14-men for 1o minutes when the lively Prisciantelli caught Edinburgh napping with a quick tap and go from just inside his own half, and McCann fsaw yellow for flopping over the tackle area when the visiting full-back was eventually brought down just shy of the home 22.

There was a distinct lack of ingenuity in Edinburgh’s attack play. Some good harrying from Mosese Tuipulotu of a dropped ball by Zebre gave the capital side an attacking platform with five minutes of the first half to play, but after being slowly pushed back through a series of ponderous one-out carries, Young was knocked onto his back in the tackle by Giacomo Licata and Luke Crosbie was penalised for going of his feet as he tried to rescue the situation.

Ben Healy came off the bench for Boffelli with three minutes of the second half played and promptly launched a massive spiral kick which swept Edinburgh all the way from well inside their own half to Zebre’s line, but then had a sloppy clearance charged down with his next involvement and Young ended up conceding a holding-on penalty trying to retrieve the situation, which Da Re had no problem turning into three more easy points.

Edinburgh needed to respond and they dug deep to deliver, setting up camp in Zebre’s 22, and eventually finding a way over the line after plenty of huffing and puffing, with Tuipulotu providing the final thrust and Ross Thompson slotting the conversion.

But it was one step forward and one step backwards because Marshall Sykes was penalised for climbing over the top of a maul from an offside position, and Zebre went for the corner then rumbled the maul all the way to the line, with replacement hooker Tommaso Di Bartolomeo getting the ball down, and Da Re firing home the conversion.

Edinburgh fought back and scored again, with a Ben Vallacott getting them into the strike zone and captain Luke Crosbie bustling over two passages of play after Prisciantelli had been rather harshly sent to the sin-bin for coming in at the side to try to steal the ball at a ruck fist five yards from his own line.

Thompson missed the conversion meaning it was a five-point game going into the final 10 minutes, but then Zebre suffered another major set-back when replacement second-row was red-carded for shoulder to head contact on Crosbie. Edinburgh mounted a ferocious late assault to secure a full haul of five points from this match they had never led in, but Zebre would not buckle and their increasingly animated bench and technical box celebrated uproariously when Juan Pitinari managed to get over the tackled Hamish Watson to win a penalty on his own line with four minutes to go.

It was a heroic defensive effort from  Zebre, but there is a strong argument that Edinburgh should have looked at being a bit more adventurous against 13 men when churning through phase after monotonous phase of forward drives, while their outside back twiddled their thumbs.

Zebre saw out the final few minutes to secure only their fourth win of this URC season. Having not won away from home since 2019, this  it is their second away win on the bounce having beaten Ulster in Belfast in their last outing at the end of January.

Teams –

Edinburgh: W Goosen; E Boffelli (B Healy 43), M Currie (J Lang 430,  M Tuipulotu, R McCann; R Thompson, A Price (B Vellacott 61); B Venter (R Hislop 65), P Harrison (H Morris 65), D Rae (P Hill 49), M Sykes, G Young (S Skinner 49), L Crosbie, H Watson, T Currie (L McConnell 65).

Zebre: G Prisciantelli; J Trulla (G Montemauri 68), F Paea, D Mazza (L Morisi. 52), S Gregory; G Da Re, G Garcia (A Fusco, 65); P Buonfiglio (L Rizzoli, 43), L Bigi (T Bartolomeo 43), M Hasa (J Pitinari 61), M Canali (G Volpi, 63), L Krumov, L Andreani (G Ferrari 57), B Stavile, G Licata.

Referee: Andrew Brace (Ireland)

Scorers –

Edinburgh: Tries: McCann, Tuipulotu, Crosbie; Con: Thompson.

Zebre: Tries: Trulla, Garcia Bartolomeo; Con: Da Re 2; Pen: Da Re.

Scoring sequence (Edinburgh first): 0-5; 5-5; 5-10; 5-12 (h-t) 5-15; 10-15; 12-15; 12-20; 12-22; 17-22.

Yellow card –

Edinburgh: McCann (28mins)

Zebre: Prisciantelli (68mins)

Red card –

Zebre: Volpi

Attendance: 5,494

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