Is something rotten in the state of Edinburgh?

By Border Badger

The dust has settled on the annual 1872 Cup matches with the teams sharing the honours of one win each and Glasgow winning the silverware with a 40-24 points aggregate win. 

It could (perhaps should) have been more than a 16 point overall win for Glasgow and, as one poster put it on Bluesky, the scoreline of the first match at Hampden flattered Edinburgh. I can’t imagine the review meeting with Franco Smith and, particularly, Pete Murchie will have been comfortable for the Glasgow players, who let in two, near identical, soft scores for Edinburgh’s Boan Venter tries at Hampden and another soft try for Pierre Schoeman in Edinburgh, albeit the prop put in a wonderfully deft grubber kick in the lead-up, to set up his own score later in the move.

It is interesting that, with a home win and a narrow away loss, one still feels like Glasgow will be the most disappointed and self-critical of the two teams.

But what of Edinburgh? After the Hampden game there were outpourings of emotion (much of it anger) from long suffering Edinburgh fans across social media. They felt frustrated at the clubs apparent under performance. After the ‘home’ game at Murrayfield there was much relief, but not a great deal of elation. So I asked myself the question: Were these games a sign of Edinburgh underperforming, or were Edinburgh simply outplayed by a better team at Hampden and, rightly, scraped a narrow win at Murrayfield? Is this Edinburgh simply playing to par?

However, the issue that seemed to be at the fore from the fans was not that Edinburgh lost at Hampden, but in the manner of the loss. This was the first leg of the Scottish rugby club showpiece. The inter-city derby. 

And Edinburgh looked like they hadn’t even bothered to turn up.

If my brief research is correct, Edinburgh’s starting XV in the Glasgow game had 377 Scotland caps between them. There were 221 caps in the forwards, with every starter being a capped international and 156 caps in a back division which also sported 2 capped B&I Lions. The bench held a further 72 caps, with 7 of the 8 having international honours. These guys should absolutely be “showing up” for any match.

In the same game, Glasgow started with 330 caps, including Seb Cancilliere who has 12 for Argentina. Glasgow’s bench sported 79 caps. But worth noting that 67 of these were shared between Rory Sutherland and the evergreen Duncan Weir. However, you could easily argue that the experience levels of both sides were close enough to be irrelevant.

The numbers were broadly similar at Murrayfield, albeit with Edinburgh shuffling a couple to the bench as seeming penitence for their transgressions during the first leg.

So back to the question, are Edinburgh underperforming? For me, they absolutely are. Where Glasgow seem to be greater than the sum of their parts and are odds-on favourites to make the playoffs again this year, Edinburgh seem to struggle to turn up for two games in a row and are scraping wins to keep themselves in the top half of the table.

So, the next, obvious question is: What is going on at Edinburgh and can it be fixed?

Many people are calling for the sacking of Head Coach Sean Everitt. You’ll get no argument from me because, as in any organisation, the person in the top job should ultimately be held responsible for the performance of that organisation. I make no secret of the fact I had reservations about his appointment in the first place, not least because of his record with the senior Sharks team and what their fans were saying about the malaise that seemed to pervade their squad towards the end of his tenure. He’s done nothing to convince me that my initial scepticism was misplaced. As well as the attitude problem, Edinburgh seems to have little or no game-plan, certainly not one I can see. And that’s entirely on the head coach.

As a piece of further evidence, Edinburgh’s line-up for both games included Scotlands’ top 2 international try scorers on the wings. Yet the three tries across the derbies were all scored by props. Two of those, at Hampden, were short range, quickly taken penalties when the game was over as a contest, rather than any construction from team tactics. In the win at Murrayfield, an unexpected grubber kick from a prop may
well have saved the coach’s job. Should it?

As many have pointed out though, it’s not just Everitt. The problem with Edinburgh seems to be baked into the culture of the club. Successive coaches have failed to get the best out of this club and, with so many internationals on their books, this team have to now be seen as perennial under-performers.

So how do you change a culture so ingrained? Edinburgh can’t (and shouldn’t) simply cull all the senior players as I’ve seen suggested by some. In fact, I would argue the opposite. They need to get the senior players, the leadership group, to actually lead the change and take responsibility for it. But more importantly, they need a Head Coach who is capable of making that happen.

I would guess there are not many of them around who actually have those skills, but it’s a similar task to what Toby Booth seemed to achieve at Ospreys. Franco Smith didn’t create the culture at Glasgow, but he bought into it and helped sustain it, so there must be a couple around. If the SRU really want to ensure that the playing budget at Edinburgh is not wasted, they’re going to need to dig deep to get the right coach too. Considering there were 20 Scotland internationals in the match-day squad for the 1872 Cup matches, including some of the ‘first on the team sheet’ picks for our national team, I would think that was money well spent for Scottish rugby.

So for me, the key next steps for Edinburgh are:

1. The SRU must recruit a Head Coach that both understands the need for changing and embedding the new culture, and is capable of making it happen.
2. The SRU has to completely support this change and (visibly and vocally) support the Head Coach they appoint to lead it.
3. The Head Coach needs to ensure that some of the senior players who ‘get it’ commit to leading the change.
4. The SRU must give the coach the leeway to bin any of the players who don’t support the change (whoever they are!). This won’t be known on day one, but they’ll be very obvious in a few months.
5. Finally, the SRU and the fans need to give the coach the time they need to make it work.

It’s a long project and there is no ‘quick fix’ now. If I was being asked how long it takes to fully embed a new culture in a large business organisation I would be saying 2 to 3 years. Sport is probably different but for Edinburgh Rugby, my guess is that it will take at least 1 year to change and another year to fully embed. We fans will need to be patient, but that will be easier if we can see positive change happening.

Edinburgh can, and will, get better. But it will take effort, and no small amount of patience, from all concerned.