Having trailed for nearly the entire 80 minutes Connacht shocked Edinburgh Rugby to claim a single-point victory at the death thanks to WIllie Faloon’s late try.

Faloon returned from the sin bin with the clock running down to drive over the line from a maul as Connacht ground out their second narrow win of the season following a tight triumph over Newport Gwent Dragons on opening day.

The result was a blow for Edinburgh, who came into the game full of confidence after victory over Munster last time out.

Edinburgh made the perfect start, with fly-half Tom Heathcote slotting an early penalty to get the home side up and running. Full-back Darragh Leader had a chance to reply for the visitors but pushed his effort wide of the uprights.

And Connacht were made to rue that miss as an Andries Strauss tackle led to another Edinburgh penalty and Heathcote made no mistake from near halfway to make it 6-0 on ten minutes.

Edinburgh were dominating territory and found themselves camped in the Connacht 22 but failed to get any points on the board and were pinged for not releasing the ball, giving Leader another shot at the posts. He missed with his second effort, however, which sailed wide of the right post.

But on 22 minutes Edinburgh were penalised for not releasing again and Leader dispatched the penalty from in front of the posts to reduce the deficit.

Connacht looked to have the edge at the scrum but couldn’t penetrate until four minutes before the break when another set piece collapsed and Leader was able to level things up with the boot.

Having done the hard work in getting level, however, Connacht couldn’t survive until the break as a lack of numbers out wide allowed Cornell Du Preez in for the first try of the night, which Heathcote converted.

Edinburgh had the first chance to add to their tally after the interval when Connacht were penalised for a side entry but Heathcote missed from the ten-metre line and it remained 13-6.

With 15 minutes of the second half gone WP Nel was sent to the bin for an infringement at the scrum and Leader was given another penalty shot from a similar distance and slotted it home, and the lead was down to four points.

Connacht’s efforts to haul themselves back to parity suffered a serious blow when Faloon was dispatched to the sin bin with 16 minutes on the clock.

Heading into the final ten minutes the sides scrummed down five metres from the Connacht line and Edinburgh threw bodies at the visitors’ try line to no avail.

But having trailed for 77 minutes Connacht refused to give up and with Faloon restored won a penalty that fly-half Jack Carty kicked for the corner.

From the resulting lineout the visitors mauled for the corner and it was Faloon who found the try line, Carty missing the conversion to leave Connacht with a one-point lead to protect. But they held out to secure the win and upset Edinburgh on their home turf.

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