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Exiting Scotland star partially blamed for Edinburgh loss by 'angry' Everitt
By PA
Sean Everitt felt Edinburgh only had themselves to blame for losing to Benetton on Friday – but he refused to let Toulouse-bound Blair Kinghorn carry the can for his late victory-costing error.
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The Scots looked on course to go top of the United Rugby Championship overnight when they led 12-0 early on and then 19-10 at half-time.
But they let Benetton back into the game in the second half and the Italians eked out a 24-22 victory.
“I’m disappointed and at the same time angry because the things that let us down are the same things we’ve spoken about,” said senior coach Everitt.
“We put ourselves into a position to lose the game – Benetton didn’t dominate and win it, we lost it.
“We lost our line-out five metres out when we could have put them to bed and they ended up scoring 100 yards down the field on the return play, so that’s really disappointing for the boys.
“You can’t knock the effort the team put in and, from a discipline point of view, we were OK at half-time having given away four penalties and four turnovers, but then at the start of the second half we gave away two penalties in a row which led to the try, then obviously the soft moment late in the game which we couldn’t get back from.”
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The soft moment Everitt referred to was a terrible 68th-minute error from Kinghorn, who – under little obvious pressure – got himself in trouble and fumbled possession into the path of Marco Zanon, who dotted over for what proved to be the decisive score of the night.
The Scotland full-back, who will join Toulouse after next weekend’s trip to Ulster, had looked like signing off from the Hive Stadium on a high with two first-half tries.
Everitt added: “Blair did extremely well under the high ball and had a good game. We can’t fault him for one mistake because then we have to fault everyone.
“We’ll all take it on the chin as a team and coaching staff and move on.”
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The writer here ignores the fact that, following on from not taking the penalty kick, the All Blacks did manage to score a try a few minutes later. Not directly from the penalty awarded, but it is speculation to say that had they opted to take the koi they would have won. Even if they kicked it, which was no guarantee, they would still be trailing and would have had to start again at half-way.
Go to commentsI would be surprised if Sales Opoku Fordjour and Northampton’s Tommy Freeman are not in the team, Anthony Watson is also one that could go on the wing. One thing I must say is that the front 3 will get destroyed against a team like South Africa.
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