Five things we learned as Edinburgh miss out on play-offs after defeat

Sean Everitt’s men kept things tight until the break, but the hosts let loose in the final quarter as they ran in five tries to leapfrog the capital club, while a losing bonus point for the Emirates Lions in their defeat to the Stormers nudged the South Africans into the top eight.

Edinburgh were handed an early advantage when Benetton flanker Alessandro Izakor was sin-binned inside a minute, but it was the hosts who struck while down to 14 men as Ignacio Mendy crossed in the corner after a punishing Juan Ignacio Brex carry.

The visitors found their feet as a couple of Ben Healy penalties nudged them in front and some resilient defence kept the Italians out, but Onisi Ratave plucked a loose ball and ran in a second Benetton try from inside his own half to put his side 12-6 up at the interval.

Edinburgh sighed with relief when Thomas Gallo’s barnstorming try was ruled out for a double movement, but it was a sign of things to come as the hosts came out stronger in front of a fired-up crowd.

Benetton dominated the second half as Tomas Albornoz carved a path under the sticks before Izekor made amends with a brace of tries to give his side a bonus-point score that moved them into the Champions Cup spots and left Edinburgh fans desperately checking their phones in the hope of good news from South Africa that would not arrive.

Play-off pain for Edinburgh

Most fans at the Stadio Monigo had one eye on the match in front of them and one eye on how things were unfolding down in South Africa, where the Lions began their must-win clash with the Stormers 15 minutes before kick-off in Treviso.

While the Lions suffered a late defeat, their losing bonus point was still enough to nudge them above Edinburgh in the standings.

Defeat saw the Scots slide out of the playoff places, out of the Champions Cup spots, and end their season earlier than anyone hoped or expected.

Captain Grant Gilchrist left no doubt about how he saw it in his pre-match interview, saying “our season is on the line” and admitting “it’s success or failure today, there’s no in between…we see not making the top eight as failure.”

It will be a tough one to swallow, having had everything in their own hands, but ultimately Edinburgh paid the price for a season riddled with inconsistency.

Things fall apart in final quarter

With almost three-quarters of the match played, it was still anyone’s game with the scoreline tightly poised at 12-6.

But as the subs rolled on, Benetton’s superior strength in depth showed and Edinburgh collapsed spectacularly, losing the final 20 minutes 19-0 and conceding three tries in that time.

While there were key players missing for the Scots, they still had experienced internationals like Dave Cherry, Hamish Watson and Mark Bennett to call upon from the bench, so their brutal dismantling will be a cause for concern.  

Edinburgh’s new-look back three toil

It wasn’t long ago that the back three was Edinburgh’s strongest area, with a Scotland all-star combination of Blair Kinghorn, Duhan van der Merwe and Darcy Graham giving even the most seasoned opponents nightmares.

But with Kinghorn now celebrating a European triumph with Toulouse following his mid-season move and Graham joining Emiliano Boffelli, Harry Paterson and Wes Goosen on a stacked injury list, Everitt was left short-staffed at a critical moment.

James Lang was shifted to full-back, while Jake Henry came in on the wing, and some dodgy handling and wayward passes at crucial moments didn’t help Edinburgh’s cause.

Benetton’s kicking game ruthlessly exposed the patched-up Edinburgh backfield as Lang’s spill led to the Italian’s opening try on the counter-attack, before another fumble from the full-back helped Izekor in for his second score.

Ritchie’s award-winning form

It has been an emotional week for Ritchie, who scooped Edinburgh’s player of the year award before heading to Italy and spoke about a “challenging” year where he has had to wear his loss of both the captaincy and his starting spot for Scotland very publicly.

For all the flanker’s turbulence at international level, he continues to be a welcome source of reliability for his club, as he showed once again in Treviso.

Ritchie leads the URC for turnovers this season and added to his tally with a huge steal on the half-hour mark, just as Benetton were starting to bite back as an attack breached the final 10 metres of the pitch in front of the Edinburgh posts. He added a second later to lead the game stats.

Edinburgh’s Treviso hoodoo

As bright sunshine flooded the turf, music blared, beers were poured and green hats handed out to the gathered fans, the Stadio Monigo certainly didn’t feel like a place Edinburgh fans would want to avoid.

But the Treviso ground has become a cursed place for the Scottish side. This was their fifth consecutive defeat here, stretching their wait for a win in Veneto to seven years.

Granted, it hasn’t been a place many teams have enjoyed coming to – Glasgow Warriors are the only side to claim a win here in more than a year, doing so two months ago.