Professional rugby is getting better to watch as sides break away from a purely physical approach, with the South Africans in the URC helping teams like Edinburgh improve.
That is the view of Edinburgh’s assistant backs coach Gareth Baber, who spent seven years working in Sevens culminating with leading Fiji to Olympics gold medals in Tokyo.
He also took charge of Fiji on their November tour this time last year, before heading to Edinburgh to work under head coach Mike Blair.
That his last pre-Sevens job was jointly in charge of Cardiff, the side Edinburgh beat 17-25 in an entertaining game on Sunday, added a little extra interest to his wider views on how rugby has evolved.
“Having done Sevens for a long time I had to get my mind back into understanding how the game has moved on and what I can learn when I came to Edinburgh,” said Baber.
“I think fifteens has changed in that time. You are seeing a lot more attention to playing around transition and turnover ball, both us and Cardiff were good at that today using good shapes in attack to break the game up.
“I also think that at the back end of when I was coaching fifteens it became very staid in the way it was very, very physical, and there were fewer opportunities on the field to break out and play expansive rugby.
“I see a lot more of that now than I remember in 2014, I am quite excited about what I am seeing in international rugby and other teams compared to five or six years ago.
“The URC is an interesting league, with some of the South African teams such as the Stormers, that transition game they are playing is very difficult to combat and we are all sort of learning which is great.
“It was a shock to the system coming back into fifteens from Sevens. In fairness to Edinburgh, and Mike Blair in particular, he wanted something a bit different. I am learning heaps from him and the other coaches and players.
“The game has moved on, that’s what you want as a coach is the challenge to improve yourself and then be able to improve others. But coaching back in Britain is certainly slightly colder than in Fiji!”
The win over Cardiff opens up a five point gap between Edinburgh in fifth place in the table and the Welsh side in sixth, heading into the international break.
