Edinburgh '100%' should have beaten Montpellier in Champions Cup - Richard Cockerill
- Published
Edinburgh lost 21-15 to Montpellier in their opening Champions Cup pool five match
Edinburgh "100%" should have beaten Montpellier in their Champions Cup opener, says Richard Cockerill.
The Scottish side lost 21-15 in France, but kept their illustrious hosts scoreless after the break.
A fine second-half display almost yielded a shock victory, with Magnus Bradbury's late try disallowed.
"They could have capitulated and waved the white flag when it was going against them but the new Edinburgh doesn't accept that," Cockerill said.
"I hate being a plucky loser. We need to take the next step and hopefully we can do that next week [against Toulon at Murrayfield].
"We take a losing bonus point, Montpellier have still got to come to us. Toulon won't look forward to coming to us next week if we can play like that. We've got to improve parts of our game and make sure we put that same type of performance in."
Stuart McInally, who head coach Cockerill revealed had "been ill all week but desperate to play", and Dougie Fife scored fine tries in either half of Edinburgh's first Champions Cup match in five seasons.
With 11 minutes remaining, Simon Berghan impeded Bradbury's route to the line and was penalised for obstruction.
"We had a fantastic try from McInally, great off-loading and if the French had scored that it'd have been a classic French try. Maybe it's a classic Edinburgh try now," Cockerill told BBC Scotland.
"Maybe they expected just to steamroller us but we've got more about us.
"Berghan ran across Bradbury's line and got all flustered in the heat of the moment. Bradbury's in that hole and Berghan should stay in the hole outside and he wants to score and runs across and we get done.
"That's the game-winning moment. In those moments you've got to be cool and collected and we've got to learn from those experiences. But my god, it's very frustrating."