Edinburgh Rugby beat a lacklustre Emirates Lions 24-12 at the Hive Stadium, qualifying for the EPCR Challenge Cup Semi-Final.
Edinburgh started like a house on fire and scored two early tries helped by the lacklustre "defence" of the Emirates Lions.
Following the initial shock to the visitors, they did claw their way back into the game, however, really bad mistakes made on the defence by the visitors gave Edinburgh plenty of opportunities to attack the tryline of the Emirates Lions.
After twenty-eight minutes of play, Edinburgh's flanker, Jamie Ritchie, scored their third try to extend their lead to 17-00 following a conversion by Ross Thompson.
Edinburgh led 17-00 at the halftime break against a lacklustre Emirates Lions who have not threatened to score, not even close.
The Lions looked a lot better and played with some urgency. The Lions scored their first points after a drought of 127 minutes when Francke Horn scored a try off the back of a lineout mall to cut Edinburgh's lead to 17-05.
The match degraded into a dull affair with not much happening, however, Edinburgh was extremely patient, building their attack and scoring an easy fourth try when Ali Price was shown the way to the tryline by the horrible defence by the Emirates Lions "defenders". Edinburgh led 24-05 with eight minutes to play.
Jaco Visagie scored the Lions' second try off the back of a lineout-maul to cut Edinburgh's score to 24-12 following a conversion by Nico Steyn.
Scorers:
Edinburgh Rugby: Tries: Wes Goosen, Ben Vellacott, Jamie Ritchie, Ali Price. Conversion: Ross Thompson (2).
Emirates Lions: Try: Francke Horn, Jaco Visagie. Conversions: Nico Steyn.
Teams
Edinburgh Rugby: 15 Wes Goosen, 14 Darcy Graham, 13 Matt Currie, 12 James Lang, 11 Ross McCann, 10 Ross Thompson, 9 Ben Vellacott (captain), 8 Magnus Bradbury, 7 Hamish Watson, 6 Jamie Ritchie, 5 Grant Gilchrist (captain), 4 Sam Skinner, 3 Paul Hill, 2 Dave Cherry, 1 Pierre Schoeman. Replacements: 16 Ewan Ashman, 17 Boan Venter, 18 Javan Sebastian, 19 Glen Young, 20 Freddy Douglas, 21 Ali Price, 22 Cammy Scott, 23 Jack Brown.
Emirates Lions: 15 Quan Horn, 14 Richard Kriel, 13 Manuel Rass, 12 Rynhardt Jonker, 11 Edwill van der Merwe, 10 Gianni Lombard, 9 Morne van den Berg, 8 Francke Horn (captain), 7 Ruan Venter, 6 Jarod Cairns, 5 Darrien Landsberg, 4 Ruben Schoeman, 3 Asenathi Ntlabakanye, 2 Franco Marais, 1 SJ Kotze. Replacements: 16 Jaco Visagie, 17 Juan Schoeman, 18 RF Schoeman, 19 Izan Esterhuizen, 20 Siba Qoma, 21 Nico Steyn, 22 JC Pretorius, 23 Marius Louw.