Why you should never hesitate with the ball when 115kg Fijian is opposite
It would be interesting to know what was going through the Scarlets’ Eddie James’ mind when he received the ball on the hour mark against Edinburgh on Saturday.
With a player just on his left, and with Fiji No8 Bill Mata lining him up, the most obvious option seemed to be to pass to the player on his left. Instead, he dithered, perhaps waiting to time the pass or perhaps loading a miss pass- either way, we will never know.
Mata’s eyes obvious lit up seeing James hesitate on the ball, and he proceeded to cut him in half. The ball went flying backwards as Mata caught his opponent man and ball.
Take a look at the hit:
Scarlets: Johnny McNicholl, Steff Evans, Joe Roberts, Ioan Nicholas, Ryan Conbeer, Sam Costelow, Gareth Davies, Kemsley Mathias, Shaun Evans, Sam Wainwright, Morgan Jones, Sam Lousi, Vaea Fifita, Dan Davis, Sione Kalamafoni (CAPT)
Replacements: Taylor Davies, Steff Thomas, Javan Sebastian, Ben Williams, Carwyn Tuipulotu, Dane Blacker, Dan Jones, Eddie James
Edinburgh Rugby: Wes Goosen, Damien Hoyland, Mark Bennett, James Lang, Jack Blain, Charlie Savala, Charlie Shiel, Boan Venter, Dave Cherry (CAPT), Murray McCallum, Glen Young, Jamie Hodgson, Nick Haining, Hamish Watson, Viliame Mata
Replacements: Adam McBurney, Jamie Jack, Lee-Roy Atalifo, Marshall Sykes, Connor Boyle, Ben Vellacott, Jaco van der Walt, Chris Dean
