Something Is Not Right About Edinburgh

This week in Scottish rugby is all about the lesser lights. Edinburgh will have the full professional game focus on them, as they ready themselves for their European Challenge Cup semi-final against Newport Gwent Dragons, at BT Murrayfield.

Before the quarter-finals, the suspicion was: Cardiff Blues to edge-out the Dragons, with the London Irish v Edinburgh clash too close to call, but, with the Irish as marginal favourites. Then the two underdogs won.

Of the two, the Dragon were the more-impressive winners, but, that said, you would still fancy, Edinburgh, with home advantage, to win. Not any more.

There is something amiss in the Edinburgh dressing room. Yes, as they showed in the second leg of the 1872 Cup, they can get fired-up, then go out and defy the odds and expectations. But, as they demonstrated last time out, against Munster - they can just as easily under-perform.

Of course the performance against Munster was disappointing. I put this down to two factors:

1. With the best will in the world, Ross Ford never has been and never will be the sort of inspirational captain you need when you are up against it. A sort of David Sole, Jim Aitken or Fin Calder character who could gather his side around him and say: "Look, I know we are up against it here, but, there is no way we are going to lose to this lot", and get a positive reaction.

2. When you are being repeatedly shafted by a referee, as Edinburgh were against the men from Cork and Limerick, it is very difficult to keep going. "Why bother, he's going to favour them whatever we do", is an easy mind set to fall into. That said, the right captain as in point one, can mitigate against point two coming into play.

Put simply, Edinburgh NEED Mike Coman's Kiwi hard-headedness against the Dragons, and the rest of the team need to buy into this.

Also, Edinburgh's squad definitely lacks depth and quality. This has to be down to the management at Murrayfield. You would imagine the club which should have first call on the talent from the Borders and Edinburgh, would have a few more guys playing for the jersey than they have.

Edinburgh have not recruited as well as Glasgow in recent years and that failing is now costing them big time. We do not have huge numbers in Scotland and the fact is, not enough of what little native talent we have is playing at Edinburgh.

Take one component of the team, the midfield.

The Scotland pecking order at ten from first-choice down, and assuming everyone is fit, is:
Finn Russell
Duncan Weir or Rhauridh Jackson
Peter Horne
Greig Tonks
Tom Hethcote

at centre it probably is:
two from Mark Bennett, Alex Dunbar and Matt Scott
Duncan Taylor
Sean Lamont
Peter Murchie
Richie Vernon

You see from the above, Edinburgh's number one number ten is only ranked the fourth-best available to Vern Cotter, while the capital club has only one player in the top seven (some might say the only seven) potential international centres we have to call on.

At Glasgow, Gregor Townsend has seven front-line centres available to him, of these, only numbers six and seven, James Downey and Conor Braid are not Scotland-qualified. Across in Edinburgh, Matt Scott is the only Scotland-qualified centre on the roster, Messers Dominguez, Beard, Bezuidenhout, Strauss, Burleigh and Atiga are "cheap foreign imports".

Why was this imbalance allowed to happen? It does little for Scottish or Edinburgh rugby.

I wish Edinburgh well on Friday night, but, I have grave doubts about their ability to see off a Dragons team who have timed their season nicely.



BUT, enough of this doom and gloom about our professional game. Saturday will be all about the club game, with Cup Finals Day, at Murrayfield. I intend looking more closely at the competing clubs as the week draws on.