Edinburgh were great & away fans were inspiring - Nicola Constantinou

With Storm Kathleen raging her way across the country a last minute switch of venues meant we would face Bayonne in the main bowl at Murrayfield rather than the Hive. The staff and volunteers all worked hard to make sure things were ready for us when gates opened at 6.30pm, bars were set up, food outlets were ready and we all piled in through the main gates to take up positions filled with nostalgia in the East Stand.

I am not familiar with the Bayonne team so was unsure how the team announced equated to their normal squad, I was aware they had made a number of changes compared to the team they had played the previous week but others had pointed out it was a similar lineup to the team who beat Exeter earlier in the Champions Cup competition, so not to be taken lightly.

The Edinburgh team was really the strongest squad we could muster, given the injuries we have. With Pierre Schoeman and Boan Venter injured we had Luan De Bruin at loosehead with Mikey Jones making his debut from the bench but it was good to see D’Arcy Rae back on the bench at tighthead. Emiliano Boffelli still being out with back issues kept Wes Goosen at fullback and Jake Henry on the wing.

By half time the only thing splitting the teams was the successful conversion of Tom Spring’s try compared to the harder kick after Hamish Watson’s score.

Just three minutes in to the second half Matt Currie made a dash for a great solo try allowing us to take the lead. Bayonne came back with a penalty and another try by Spring but four minutes later Ben Vellacott touched the ball down and promptly had his head flattened by a cheap late tackle by Yan Lestrade who received a yellow card for the incident.

Further tries by WP Nel and Duhan Van Der Merwe gave us a full time score of 33-15 and a trip back to South Afric to face the Sharks again in Durban for the quarter finals.

We also had a couple of other highlights of the matchday experience which were great.

Chunk [Allan Jacobsen] delivering the match ball, we all still love him, we stood and applauded, it was honestly so nice to see him again. With our shortage at loosehead it was almost tempting to ask him to bring a pair of boots with him. I’m pretty sure he could probably still make an impact.

The Bayonne travelling fans. They were amazing! They never stopped singing, chanting and bouncing all night. Such passionate fans who clearly love their team, they were an inspiration of how fans should be. Even on the trams on the way to the match they were singing, even when their team were being beaten they were singing, even at the end of the match and on in to the clubhouse they were still singing.

Their conga line round the section they were sitting in towards the end of the match was fantastic and the way the team came over and greeted them at the end was lovely to see.

I aspire to inspire my team as much as they did on Saturday, words cannot express just how great they were and honestly we were probably lucky we ended up playing in Murrayfield because their small band of followers would probably have drowned us out in the Hive. It made me feel like we need to do better.

So we go back to Durban after being recently defeated by the Sharks. I feel like we go there with a new lease of life though. More of our international players available and on the back of a win and the sound of the home fans cheering ringing in their ears. Can we win and move on to the semi finals? Yes we can but we really need to be on our top form to do it.

There is still so much rugby to be played this season. The Sharks next weekend then back to URC action with the Scarlets, Cardiff, Zebre, Munster and Benetton. Add to that hopefully a semi final and final (with all fingers crossed) there’s still a lot of work to be done.