EDINBURGH captain Ally Hogg last night relived his side's emphatic Heineken Cup defeat by Leicester on Saturday and admitted: "We were outclassed by a very special team."
New Edinburgh coach Andy Robinson had called on his side to silence the Welford roar when taking on the English champions on their own turf. But the contest was a dispiritingly one-sided affair, the only surprise being that the hosts did not convert their all-round superiority into a tally exceeding the 50-mark.
Now that Edinburgh are effectively out of Europe, Robinson can focus on turning the capital team into a competitive force in the Magners League with a view to building a potent squad for next season's Heineken Cup.
"For us, it was a learning experience to be head-to-head with a side of high quality - up there with the top three in the tournament," said Hogg. "They took us on up front and the honest assessment is that we could not cope.
"We actually put some good stuff together in small portions of the game and I thought we scrummaged pretty well when we were close to our own line.
"The atmosphere was fantastic and you can see why they are so hard to compete with at Welford Road. The bottom line is that we did not play and we let Leicester play. We were outclassed by a better team, a special team."
Robinson claimed Edinburgh had been "bullied" by Leicester. And he said his men weren't able to battle back because French referee Romain Poite had also been intimidated by the hosts.
"We were completely bullied for the whole game," said the former England coach. "We knew what to expect because that is the way Leicester play, but we didn't help ourselves with the way we started - giving away a charge-down try in particular.
"We then struggled in the lineout and we could not withstand the pressure. We were not helped either by the fact that the referee was bullied by Leicester as well.
"We weren't allowed to scrummage as we did against Toulouse. The ref said our loosehead Allan Jacobsen was boring in but he would only do that if their tighthead [Ben Kayser] was boring in to start with. Jacobsen had a stormer last week, this week he was yellow-carded. I have difficulties with that."
Complete article
Tigers give Edinburgh a real mauling
Tigers give Edinburgh a real mauling
