Semi final day dawned sunny and beautiful for the Edinburgh 2XV to kick off against QMU. After winning by the skin of their teeth last time they came up against the QMU side prepared for a difficult game.
Edinburgh’s focus on defense in training shone through as QMU retained possession for the first 7 minutes without making it much further than the halfway line thanks to some massive tackles from Ginny, and then a lovely jump in the line out from Julia ‘Coolio’ Guerrero gave Edinburgh a turn at attack.
Another line out at ten minutes in saw the ball go to captain and all round legend Annie McKelvey, who set an example by stepping five defenders in a row to slide under the posts for the first try! Only a few minutes later Rapid Raq Matos followed up with a run down the wing for try number 2, setting the tone of the rest of the match.
The rest of the first half saw Shauna at 15 making some fantastic diving cover tackles to keep QMU just short of the line, while Edinburgh played some offload rugby in attack to get through QMU’s defense, finished off by little Laura Keay sprinting for the line for the third try. QMU broke through for their first try, but the 2s came back with long tall Julia stealing the ball in a QMU line out, and a try for Ginny leaving the score at 22-5 to Edinburgh going into the second half.
QMU came back strong in the second half, and after a sustained fight at the try line managed to push the ball over the line for their second try, reminding the 2s not to let their lead go to their heads. Edinburgh retaliated with some big runs from the forwards with Eleonora making good ground, then through the hands to Annie for her second try right between the posts again. She followed up with a successful conversion to take the score to 29-12, but the 2s weren’t done yet with Laz playing a great game and popping down another two tries for a neat hat trick, and tries each for newbie Lucy ‘Rowdy’ Raud, Lily, and Alex along with 5 conversions to give Edinburgh a sweet win at 60-12 and a ticket to the final next month.
MoM went to Laura, Eleonora, and Lily but the whole team put in an amazing shift.
Thanks for all the supporter who came down and a huge thank you to Adrian from Rugby People for the pictures.
