THERE is never a good time to deal with a pile of injuries but there are few worse than when you are facing a make-or-break season finale against the reigning champions.
It might almost be enough to have Alan Solomons, the Edinburgh head coach, wondering if, with a jinx like that hanging over the place, he did the right thing in signing on to stay for another year.
It has been the story of the season for him. Every time he thinks they may be coming to the end of the run of bad luck on the injury front, somebody somewhere gets out the voodoo dolls in Edinburgh colours and down go another bundle of players.
It is a vicious circle too. With so many injuries, he has not got the resources to rotate the side; trying to play the same XV every week exhausts the players and makes them injury prone; so there are even more injuries and the whole cycle starts again.
It is not as though it is the fringe players who have been dropping. As Solomons pointed out, Grant Gilchrist, Matt Scott and David Denton, three players he wanted to build the team round, have hardly played. Cornell Du Preez is only just back after missing the bulk of the season, now the even indestructible WP Nel, the prop who has played in every competitive match this season, has been laid low by a knee problem.
For all that, they have to find a way to beat a strong Leinster side, or the season is over and this will be the end of the line for players like Tim Visser who are moving on over the summer. Visser, for one, is confident that at BT Murrayfield a win is possible. "I think we can do it," he said. "You could look at some of the talent we have injured at the minute and they could really be the heart and soul of our squad and we have missed them at times but Alan [Solomons] has recruited well in terms of depth
"We have some fantastic players just behind that who have done well all season. It has been a long season, I think this is our 33rd match [including pre-season friendlies], but the boys are very motivated and are keen to get another result."
The odds are that if they do win, it only means up to two more knockout matches to try to qualify for the European Champions Cup, starting with an away tie in Gloucester, but he is keen to take things one step at a time - all the maths is pointless without the victory.
For Visser, the possibility that it could be his last game for Edinburgh after six years and 72 tries for the club, makes it an emotional occasion, but he insists the rugby side will take precedence. "It'll be sad of course to leave a club like Edinburgh after six fantastic years here. I'll miss the crowd, I'll miss Edinburgh and, like I say, I think the squad we have at the minute is fantastic.
"The character is great and some of the guys are the best I've ever played rugby with and that will be sad, but conversely we are hoping to play another two games. It will be an end of era for me, but that is professional sport now and things move on. It is good looking back on it and seeing that, in the end, I have come through it with a lot of friends and come out of it as a better player - I think - and that makes me positive."
Technically there is a scenario where they can win an automatic European Champions Cup spot, but Solomons has dismissed it out of hand, throwing all his hopes on beating Leinster, who have rested a couple of players but still arrive with a powerful side, and so that if Connacht lose to the Ospreys, Edinburgh would overtake them and move into the European qualification play-off spot.
"For Leinster, who have been back-to-back European champions, their season hasn't been what they would hope for. They'd want to be in the PRO12 play-offs. They will want finish positively a season that won't have met their high standards," he said. "At the moment we only have 28 fit players to pick from, excluding the boys with the sevens squad. We have eight frontline players out, which is a massive injury list."
To cope, Tom Heathcote, another moving in the summer comes in at fly half, Frazer McKenzie moves from lock to the back row with Anton Bresler taking his spot, and John Andress covers for Nel. It is a long way from the team Solomons would have liked to pick for such an important game, but his choices are limited.
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