Edinburgh 40 Toulon 14
Edinburgh stormed to a 40-14 win over Toulon in Heineken Champions Cup Pool 5 at Murrayfield.
A deserved bonus-point win kept their qualifying hopes on track as Ben Toolis, Henry Pyrgos, Stuart McInally and Chris Dean scored tries and Jaco van der Walt kicked 18 points.
Toulis and Pyrgos crossed as Edinburgh built up a 26-7 half-time lead, Romain Taofifenua with Toulon's response, and McInally made the lead a comfortable one early in the second half.
Daniel Ikpefan pulled another try back but Dean grabbed the bonus-point score late on, converted by Simon Hickey.
Edinburgh built up a 10-0 lead in just 15 minutes. Centre Matt Scott found a hole to make a long run and when Toulon were penalised, Van der Walt kicked the penalty.
A short-side break by Blair Kinghorn and Dougie Fife let Edinburgh hammer away on the line until penalised but the opening try was not long delayed. Prop WP Nel, bouncing off a tackle, burst into the Toulon 22 where pressure resulted in a try from Toolis converted by Van der Walt.
Toulon then put in their first attack in the 20th minute and pulled back seven points when pressure from a lineout saw the ball spread wide for lock Taofifenua to crash over, with Anthony Belleau converting.
Edinburgh responded with a fine handling break involving Kinghorn, Scott and Pyrgos, with the latter scoring under the bar to make Van der Walt’s conversion simple.
As Edinburgh remained in the ascendency, their South African outhalf added three more penalties before the interval.
Five minutes after the resumption, Edinburgh pressure resulted in the third try scored by McInally with Van der Walt again converting.
Toulouse roused themselves for the rest of the half but could make nothing of Edinburgh’s defence.
Particularly notable was a last-ditch tackle on Toulon winger Josua Tuisova by Simon Berghan.
With eight minutes left Ikpefan got over for Toulon and Francois Trinh-Duc converted, but Edinburgh replied with Dean’s try to claim maximum points.
EDINBURGH: B Kinghorn; D Graham, J Johnstone, M Scott, D Fife; J van Der Walt, H Pyrgos; A Dell, S McInally, WP Nel; B Toolis, G Gilchrist; M Bradbury, H Watson, V Mata.
Replacements: J Ritchie for Gilchrist (8 mins), S Berghan for Nel (54), R Sutherland for Dell (58), R Ford for McInally (62), S Hickey for Van Der Walt (66), C Dean for Scott, N Fowles for Pyrgos, Crosbie for Watson (all 70).
TOULON: H Bonneval; J Tuiosva, M Fekitoa, M Bastareaud, J Savea; A Belleau, A Meric; F Fresia, A Etrillard, S Taofifenua; J Kruger, R Taofifenua; S Rebbadj, R Lakafia, F Vanverberghe.
Replacements: X Chiocci for Fresia (41 mins), E Escande for Meric (50), F Trinh-Duc for Belleau (56), B Soury for Etrillard (66). Not used: Setiano, Potgieter, Ikpefan.
