Exactly six months on from their last outing of a deeply disappointing 2022-23 campaign, Edinburgh kick off the new URC season on Saturday with a visit to the Dragons. Having reached May’s Challenge Cup final, Glasgow have been inactive for a mere five months, but they will be no less eager to get the new season under way when they take on Leinster at Scotstoun on Sunday.
The capital club did not have their problems to seek last season, which was barely halfway through when Mike Blair announced he would not continue as head coach beyond the summer. Veteran English coach Steve Diamond was drafted in to add experience to the backroom staff, and now Sean Everitt has taken over, albeit only on an initial one-year contract.
Edinburgh ended up down in 12th place in the 16-team league last time out, and were knocked out of the Champions Cup by Leicester Tigers in the round of 16. But Everitt has done his best to help the squad regain their self-confidence, insisting that they can be a lot more competitive with just a few minor changes to the way they play. It is a message that lock forward Glen Young, for one, has been happy to buy into.
“When Sean came in he said he wasn’t overly keen to change too much,” Young said. “Obviously we had a bit of a disappointing season last year, but there’s just a few things that we need to tweak. Sean’s an attack-minded coach, as Mike was, and I think that suits the way we play.
“There were a few games we were in it by a few points last year. If we get a few less turnovers and a couple more kicks then you turn those losses into wins. The year before we won quite a lot of games by two or three points: last year we lost a lot of games by two or three.
“We’ve been focusing in every session on basics like turnovers and unforced errors. If we cut them down it doesn’t give the opposition chances to get into our 22, so it’s so much easier to defend. Our discipline was a work-on too.”
While a run in the Challenge Cup would be more than welcome, the basic aim for Edinburgh has to be a return to the top half of the league. “We don’t want to be too unrealistic and say we want to finish top of the league,” Young added. “We want to get into the play-offs and that sets us up with a chance.
“In a dream world you’d have a home quarter-final. But you know how hard this league is, so we’re just targeting the play-offs and then we can crack on from there.”
The Warriors, who begin their season at home to Leinster on Sunday, did qualify for a home quarter-final last season - only to lose it to eventual champions Munster. That result, and the Challenge Cup defeat by Toulon, made for a disappointing end to the season, but on the whole it was a very positive first year for head coach Franco Smith. The South African had a difficult start following his appointment in August: after managing to play just one pre-season friendly against the semi-pro Ayrshire Bulls, Glasgow went into the URC programme badly undercooked. But they hit a good run of form after a few weeks and eventually finished fourth.
“We managed to get a home quarter-final last season and that’s got to be the goal again for us - it’s where the squad wants to be,” centre Stafford McDowall said. “It sounds stupid, but to be there you’ve got to be in the top eight, so that’ll be both our aims.”
The big uncertainty hanging over the opening weeks of the league concerns the absence from some of the leading teams of key international players. Sides such as Connacht and Ulster have only had a few men away on Rugby World Cup duty, but others, the two Scottish sides among them, are without a far greater number.
Glasgow’s missing Scottish contingent could fill a team on their own, while Smith will also be without the services of Sione Vailanu, who has been an outstanding member of the Tongan side. Similarly, Edinburgh will be without a host of Scotland players, as well as missing two other key men: Argentina’s Emiliano Boffelli and Fiji’s Bill Mata.
Given that situation, squad depth will obviously be critical. “[The absences are] going to have a massive influence and it’s going to test teams and their squad depth,” McDowall said.
“I think everyone knows that Franco rotated his squad quite well last season, so everyone seems a bit battle-hardened and has had a run-out in the URC. Hopefully that’ll stand us in good stead at the start of the season.”
