Edinburgh 14 Falcons 3

By Ridley
August 24 2002

Dave Walder was stretchered off with a bad leg injury as a disjointed Falcons were beaten 14-3 by Edinburgh at the Meadowbank Stadium. And to compound our bad start to the season Ian Peel also limped off .. Jonny Wilkinson struggled through with a knock... and Rob slagged off the ref!

He described Andy Ireland's performance as "appalling" with some justification. Mr Ireland was one of those officials who spent so much time looking for one side's transgressions that he completely forgot that the other side could be equally culpable.

But to blame the ref for our woes would be totally wrong. We started well, and looked fluent in attack, but a bigger meaner Edinburgh side defdnded well and started to wear us down with sheer muscle. How many times will we come across bigger packs this season?

The fact we only had one penalty to show for our huff and puff is worrying. The game swung just before half time when Blackadder and Sharman both crashed through for tries, and Walder was stretchered off with his shin injury. Fortunately, it may prove to be only badly bruised.

It didn't help matters when Vyvyan was sin binned in the second half. We did make one excellent break and Matt Thompson should have rounded off a moving involving Epi, Both and Grimes but he lost the ball with the line at his mercy.

Oh, and for the record, Epi was in the back row and had a half decent game! So did Botham.