THE new stands are up at Myreside, Edinburgh trained there for the first time yesterday, and there is a palpable excitement within the squad as they look forward to their opening match at their new home, against Timisoara Saracens a week today. Before they train at the ground again, however, Duncan Hodge’s team will have played in a match 400 miles away that could go a long way to determining how successful their move.
Harlequins are the opposition tomorrow, the Challenge Cup the competition. The prize for the winners: almost certainly a place in the last eight.
Having beaten Timisoara in Romania with an understrength team earlier in the pool stages, Edinburgh will have to suffer an extraordinary lapse if they are to fail to win the return match. They can win both their remaining games yet fail to win the group, but their points tally will then be enough for them to go through as one of the three best runners-up from the five groups.
In other words, that prize is tantalisingly close to their grasp, but first will come what should be a fierce, no-holds-barred contest at The Stoop. When the teams met at Murrayfield back in October it was certainly a lively affair, with the home side winning 36-35.
Duncan Weir, who was on his way back from injury at the time, was involved only as a water-carrier. Yesterday, after that initial training outing at Myreside, the stand-off admitted to being unsure whether the rematch will be quite so breathless an affair, though he did suggest that ideally his own team would be able to impose a bit more shape on proceedings.
“I'll answer that at 80 minutes,” he said when asked if a second try-fest was in the offing, the first match having produced 11 touchdowns. “I don't know.
“I remember watching from the touchline and at just 20 minutes in both teams were absolutely gone: they were gubbed. Both teams were playing a lot off turnover ball and there wasn't a lot of set pieces to slow things down.
“Hopefully the lungs won't be as broken up as in the first game. We're all refreshed after having last weekend off, and hopefully we can have a bit more structure in the game.
“This game is huge for us and they'll be targeting it the exact same way. If they win then they’re half a step closer to getting into that last eight.
“I know we’re really focused on doing the simple things well, which will tie in to putting them under pressure. We can only concentrate on the things we can control in the game and not worry about trying to run the length of the field on every occasion.
“It’s massive. If we can go down there and get a victory it’s almost half a step into the quarter-final, which would be great for Scottish rugby and Edinburgh. It’s a huge game. If we win that we’re bringing our first game to Myreside with a real purpose to go out and do a job and get into the last eight, which would be great.”
Hodge, the acting head coach, must have played around 100 times at Myreside for Watsonians and Edinburgh as well as in the odd representative fixture, but players such as Weir have minimal experience of their new home. Nonetheless, they all appear certain that the move will be beneficial for the team.
“We had our first training session out there today,” Weir added. “I’ve only played once here, for Hawks, but that was a good day so I have positive memories of Myreside. Hopefully it will be more hostile for the opposition coming here.
“It will be a good change for the club, and if we can pack this out every week it can only drive the club forward. For the club to develop it had to take the leap outside Murrayfield.”
At 25, Weir has a good few years in which to add to his 25 caps, and we will learn on Wednesday whether he has done enough since returning from injury to persuade Scotland coach Vern Cotter to include him in his squad for the Six Nations Championship. But the stand-off insisted that he was concentrating on his club form rather than daydreaming about international duty - and that he had been unaware that Cotter was due to announce his squad next week.
“I didn’t know that. I’m just looking to enjoy my rugby and not get hung up on international selections. I’ve maybe done that in the past, but I just want to go out and enjoy myself.
“I’m just looking to be positive, enjoy my rugby, play with a smile on my face. International honours will take care of themselves - I’m not going to be worried about that.”
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