'He is distraught about it' - Mike Blair defends kicker in agonising loss

Mike Blair praised an “outstanding effort” from his Edinburgh side in their agonising 33-31 defeat to the Bulls in the United Rugby Championship on Saturday.

With Darcy Graham scoring a hat-trick, the capital club side recovered from an early 15-0 deficit to lead 31-30 with 10 minutes remaining in Pretoria.

A Morne Steyn penalty in the last minute gave the hosts the advantage once again, but Edinburgh had the chance to win it only for Henry Immelman to send a penalty wide with the final kick of the game.

Edinburgh head coach Blair told the club’s official website: “Huge pride. It was an outstanding effort.

“The way we defended our line a couple of times, and the effort and work rate off the ball, was outstanding.

“It is getting that consistency and being switched on mentally at every moment because at this level if you drop off a couple of times that is when you concede points.

“It was definitely a disappointing start, the first quarter of the game. I didn’t think we were quite there mentally.

“We gave the Bulls a couple of easy ‘ins’ into the game by not being switched on enough.

“On the positive side, the way we came back from that and the guts, courage and skill we brought to the game was absolutely outstanding.

“There was too much of a cushion at the start but we got ourselves back into the position to win the game.”

Asked about the last play of the game, Blair backed Immelman, saying: “We were looking at that game exactly the same as if that kick went over or didn’t.

“The pride we spoke about was there throughout the game.

“Henry is not a front-line kicker but he stood up and wanted to do that.

“It was a difficult kick, he didn’t make it and of course he is distraught about it.

“He had an excellent game apart from that. The game was lost in that last 10 minutes and not with that kick.”