Edinburgh head coach Sean Everitt described “frustration and anger” inside the dressing room after their final-day collapse against Benetton but saw positives in the 2023/24 season as a whole despite its abrupt ending.
The Scots travelled to Italy knowing that victory would be enough to earn them a place in the playoff quarter-finals and next season’s Champions Cup, but they were outclassed 31-6 on a tortuous day in Treviso.
Defeat combined with the Lions picking up a losing bonus point against the Stormers in South Africa ensured that Edinburgh tumbled from seventh to ninth in an agonising end to an inconsistent campaign.
“There is frustration and anger. This is a good test of how close our group is,” Everitt said.
“We’re going to go through some adversity now, we’re going to have to pick ourselves up and come back next season to go again.”
READ MORE: Five things we learned as Edinburgh miss out on play-offs after poor Benetton showing
The comprehensive nature of Edinburgh’s defeat was stunning considering the stakes of a game that Everitt had described as a “cup final” and captain Grant Gilchrist had billed as one that would determine if the season was a “success or a failure.”
But former Sharks boss Everitt, who joined the capital club last summer, insisted there were positives to take despite the alarming ending.
“We’ll rue some points along the way. Benetton at home is a game we should have won and should have won handsomely. That’s come home to roost,” he said.
“But we beat Ulster away from home, we beat the Bulls and Lions at home and there have been some really good performances along the way.
“Those are the improvements we will look at. If you look at the team as a whole, it was never short of effort, but at times our skill errors let us down.”
Edinburgh’s attack has been a particular cause of criticism this season, and a six-point tally in Treviso only served to further underline their problems pressuring opponents.
Everitt’s side scored 47 tries in 18 games, an average of 2.6 per game, and picked up just three try-scoring bonus points throughout the campaign – only Dragons (1pt) have a lower tally.
“We did well enough to put ourselves in this position, but this game sums up our performances: when we get opportunities, we don’t finish them,” Everitt said.
“We’ve got to look at the growth the team has made. There has been growth in certain areas, otherwise we wouldn’t have won 11 games.
“But there are obviously areas that are a concern for me. We need to work hard on our attack to get some flow going.
“To be fair to the players, with me coming late - and that’s not an excuse - you tend to want to put your defence and kicking game in place, so I’ll take some responsibility for that.
“But our attack initially was really good and it’s something we need to work on for next season. We’ve put in some good foundation work and I see that as growth.”
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