Edinburgh coach Mike Blair was frustrated with referee Frank Murphy’s decisions at scrum time in his side’s 34-18 loss against the Stormers in Cape Town on Saturday.
Blair’s men scrummed well and put the defending champions under huge pressure holding a 10-0 lead for most of the first half but failed to keep the Stormers scoring before halftime.
Frustration
The former Scotland scrum-half thought his side should have been rewarded more for their scrum dominance while crediting the Stormers for their performance.
“I think we fronted up really well,” said Blair. “We were disappointed with our start against the Bulls last week and I thought we showed a huge amount of control and pressure in that first 30 minutes.
“I am surprised that they weren’t penalised more. We’ve got a dominant scrum. We are going forward; the scrum is going to the ground and the referee is saying play the ball away.
“That doesn’t happen. We were dominant and we should be rewarded for being dominant in that area.
“The Stormers were excellent in their defence and they put a huge amount of pressure on our attack and that was their pinch point.
“Our pinch point was our scrum and I think it was managed a bit to get the game going when in fact we had a huge amount of dominance there, which should have resulted in more points and potentially yellow cards for illegal scrumming.”
Strong counter-attack
Blair admits the Stormers are dangerous on the counter-attack but feels his team should have controlled the game better.
“I thought the Stormers were excellent today,” said Blair.
“The opportunities they got they took them and they harassed us with their defence.
“They got some incredible individuals, especially in the back row.
“If you give their centres and wings a sniff, they will take it and that is the beauty of their game.
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“They got a strong defence and they are looking to get errors out of you and they force you to make that extra pass and they got speed and skill to make the most of it.
“That is what won them the game. Although, I do feel that had we been given our due reward for what we were doing in the scrum then we could have controlled the game a little bit better.”
Stormers coach John Dobson admitted his side struggled in the scrum early on and believes it is not up to the standards he would like.
“It surprised us a little a bit. I thought we had more parity,” said Dobson.
“I thought we got beaten in the scrums earlier on but it’s an all-Scotland front row. It’s a really good scrumming front row.
“I was a bit disappointed with our performance. They had a really good tactic by isolating Neethling [Fouche] and they got away with it, which is great for them.
“However, it is not our standard of scrumming – we got caught on the double shove and that put us under pressure at the start.”
