RUGBY/Connacht - 16 Edinburgh - 16: Connacht, as ever, gave it the good fight. They seemed well placed to keep their faint Heineken European Cup qualification hopes alive after taking a 10-3 lead against a howling, if sun-kissed evening breeze which whipped in off the Atlantic. But Edinburgh's strength-in-depth and cutting edge saw them turn the game on its head in the last quarter.
Their finishing power was epitomised by a cleverly worked and taken try by the dangerous Marcus Di Rollo, while Todd Blackadder's greater use of his bench was highlighted by the impact of Mike Blair.
It didn't help Connacht's cause one bit that the fastidious and infuriatingly inconsistent Welsh official Phil Fear punished them heavily, sinbinned hooker John Fogarty and set Edinburgh on their way with a penalty try.
The shame for Connacht, in front of a reasonably good-sized crowd for the first half of a rugby-greyhound double header, was they appeared to have done much of the hard work and had established what seemed a platform for a sixth successive home win when Mark McHugh's 43rd-minute penalty further rewarded their excellent first-half performance.
But their intensity of the first-half slipped a little, especially in defending the maul and in the tackle, while it was surprising and a little frustrating that McHugh, blessed with arguably the biggest boot in Ireland, and David Slemen sought the touchline in the second half rather than use the wind to just punt the ball downfield.
On the occasion he did, McHugh found a freakish, 90-metre touch virtually from one try-line to the other.
Facing into the elements, a fired-up Connacht were quickly on to the front foot and rapidly gave themselves a handy 10-point buffer.
Andrew Farley literally led from the front when taking the kick-off and charging upfield, with Stephen Knoop and John Muldoon on hand to take the move deep into Edinburgh territory. This drew the home backs offside and McHugh opened the scoring.
It was a rare sortie into enemy territory, yet Connacht's second was even more profitable. Patiently working through the phases for McHugh to find a decent touch on the 22, the pack mauled impressively off a take by David Gannon, and, though it was held up, Tom Tierney showed some of his old Test pedigree by dummying Alasdair Strokosch and fending off Alasdair Kellock for an opportunistic, scrumhalf's try. Even more encouragingly, McHugh's mighty boot defied geometry by landing the touchline conversion.
Connacht had already repelled one lineout maul by Edinburgh, while Gannon reduced their workload further with an adroit steal, something of a trademark for last year's Irish under-21 lock.
But the work in defying a couple more of Edinburgh's renowned mauls was outstanding, holding up the first drive, regrouping quickly and standing off in ones and twos and hitting the maul with purpose to stem any switch of direction.
Similarly, the intensity and work around the fringes was faultless.
Chris Paterson missed a straightish, 30-metre penalty before opening his account two minutes before the break.
When McHugh restored the 10-point lead soon after the turnaround, Connacht were in the box seat, and even when prop Alasdair Dickinson was put over in the corner to finally reward their repeated fringe bombardment, McHugh quickly made it 16-8.
A turning point came after his mammoth touchfinder when his penalty attempt after the pack again defied an Edinburgh maul out from their line struck the upright.
Reprieved, Edinburgh emptied their bench and came knocking again, for Mr Fear to award them a penalty try when a maul was brought to ground.
That roused the crowd, but John Hearty undid his clean line-break by failing to put Mostyn over in the corner, and a neat interchange by Blair and Matt Mustchin ended with Di Rollo scoring off the scrum-half's offload to round the posts.
Despite a desperate late assault, Connacht never looked like salvaging the game, and to add insult to injury Fear ignored Edinburgh's clear decision to stop a late maul by hitting the deck. One that got away really.
SCORING SEQUENCE: 2 mins: McHugh pen 3-0; 9: Tierney try, McHugh con 10-0; 38: Paterson pen 10-3 (half-time 10-3); 43: McHugh pen 13-3; 47: Dickinson try 13-8; 50: McHugh pen 16-8; 63: penalty try, Paterson con 16-15; 70: Di Rollo try, Paterson con 16-22.
CONNACHT: D Slemen; M Mostyn, J Hearty, G Williams, D Yapp; M McHugh, T Tierney; D McFarland, J Fogarty, S Knoop, D Gannon, A Farley (capt), J Muldoon, M Lacey, C Rigney. Replacements: D McGowan for Gannon (half-time), J Merrigan for McGowan (49-56 mins), A Clarke for McFarland, C O'Loughlin for Tierney (both 71 mins). Not used: M Swift, P Warwick, C McPhillips. Sinbinned: Fogarty (
EDINBURGH: H Southwell; C Paterson (capt), M di Rollo, P Jorgensen, F Leonelli; P Godman, R Lawson; A Jacobsen, A Kelly, A Dickinson, D Duley, A Kellock, M Mustchin, A Strokosch, S Taylor. Replacements: D Hewett for Jacobsen (29-36 mins), A MacDonald for Taylor (45 mins), F Pringle for Duley, M Blair for Lawson (both 56 mins), A Monro for Jorgensen (67 mins). Not used: K Traynor, M Pyke.
Referee: Phil Fear (Wales).
