Edinburgh cut Castres adrift

Edinburgh moved off the bottom of Pool Two with a 32-14 win over fellow Heineken Cup strugglers Castres at Murrayfield.

The hosts battled back from a 14-10 half-time deficit to dominate the second 40 minutes and move above their opponents in the table.

Replacement Andrew Kelly grabbed a fourth try in the closing stages to secure a bonus point at the end of a scrappy contest of contrasting halves.

Looking for revenge having lost the reverse fixture on home soil, Castres held the lead at the break thanks to tries from Romain Terrain and Iosefa Tekori.

Slender advantage

However, the French side were unable to hang onto their slender advantage, failing to add a single point to their total in the second half.

Both teams opted to rest some of their star names with a place in the knockout stages seemingly out of their grasp, Edinburgh boss Andy Robinson leaving both Mike Blair and Chris Paterson on the bench.

The decision did not seem to matter as the home team dominated for long periods, though they failed to turn their pressure into points until after the interval.

Phil Godman booted over his second penalty attempt to break the deadlock before the Gunners were left stunned by a breakaway score from their opponents.

A slick move resulted in hooker Terrain getting over in the corner, fly-half Romain Teulet then adding the tricky conversion.

Edinburgh responded with a score of their own through Ben Cairns only to concede again just after the half hour when Tekori finished off some good work by his skipper Rodrigo Ortega.

Just as they seemed to be back on top, Castres' cause was dealt a blow when try-scorer Terrain was sin-binned for killing the ball.

Godman try

It took the home side until four minutes into the second period to make the man advantage tell, as Hugo Southwell's burst led to Godman going over.

The number 10 missed the conversion and then made way for sub Paterson, who made an early impact on proceedings by slotting over a penalty to make it 18-14.

A charge from Scott Newlands led to a fantastic touchdown by Ross Ford shortly after and with the extras added, Edinburgh finally had some daylight on the scoreboard.

Kelly's late, late effort secured another point as the Magners League outfit clinched a European double over Castres following a 13-6 win at Stade Pierre Antoine back in October.