Cardiff Blues 10 - 3 Edinburgh: Alan Solomons laments errors

He focused on the chances they missed in the second half as the source of his frustration, while admitting they could have been so far behind in the first 20 minutes as to render the rest of the opportunities redundant. The result keeps Edinburgh in the top four as the Guinness Pro12 bunches up at the top of the table. Cardiff coach Danny Wilson rued the fact his side crossed the line four times, enough for a bonus point win, but were given a try for only one of those chances with a knock-on and two television match official decisions ruling out the other three. It is one of the curiosities of the TMO system that sometimes they pretty much have to give the decision in a way which is probably wrong, governed by the vagaries of the TV pictures rather than the reality. In particular that applied to the last of the Blues’ chances when Rhys Patchell went over in the corner. The two freeze frames on TV showed the ball in the air and the outside half’s foot well away from touch, then the ball firmly touched down and the foot just touching the inside of the line. In all probability the ball was down before the foot reached the line, but because there was no picture to confirm that Edinburgh stayed in the game and got a losing bonus point. The other TMO decision was a little less controversial, but still threw up a couple of talking points as No 8 Manoa Vosawai was tackled just short of the line and then ended up comfortably over it. It was ruled as a double movement, partly because it was only viewed in slow motion rather than real time. Blues coach Wilson was correct in commenting that Vosawai would have been allowed to place the ball back with those timings, so why not forwards over the line? Solomons, in the way of most coaches, did not want to focus on those elements outside of his side’s control, but rather on the rest of the match where he felt his team had chances they did not take. “Our error rate was through the roof,” he said. “When you have that you cannot possibly expect to win the game. If we are honest with ourselves, we were fortunate to get the bonus point. “I thought we had a real prospect of winning the game. We had a bit of breeze behind us and there was nothing in it, but we just continued to shoot ourselves in the foot. “We didn’t have the strongest pack out there, but I thought the forwards did well. We made too many mistakes in the back line. “At the end of 16 games everyone is pretty exhausted. We had to travel for a 15th and 16th games, and that is not straightforward. “After 20 minutes we were under the pump because they got the early try and then the penalty. We managed to hang in there and at 10-3 I thought we had a great opportunity. I’m disappointed that we didn’t take it.”