EDINBURGH RUGBY head coach Richard Cockerill is under no illusions as to how tough a challenge his side will face when they meet Wasps at Murrayfield on Friday, but he is boosted by the news that Scotland international, Darcy Graham, will start the game after picking up an injury at the World Cup.
The English side will travel north for the third round of European Challenge Cup matches and Cockerill is well aware of the quality they will bring with them.
“They’re a big European club, they’ve won Europe, they’ve been English champions,” he said.
“They’ve got some very special players. They’ve got three All Blacks in their back line, they’ve got a Springbok, they’ve got England internationals.
“The Premiership is an unforgiving place, even after five games, you can be under pressure. But we know they have a lot of threat.”
However, Wasps are currently languishing in tenth place in the English Premiership and are in third place in their Challenge Cup group while Edinburgh have started the season in impressive form, including recording a win over Munster in Cork last week and two wins in the Challenge Cup.
Knowing how well his side are playing, Cockerill is confident that his side has the beating of Wasps, but he will not allow any complacency to creep in.
“Clearly they’ve not started the season the way they would have liked and they’ve got a few injury issues but that’s part and parcel of the game.
“Wasps are a good team but we know that if we put our best game on the field we’ll more than compete with them,” he said.
“But if we’re sloppy an inaccurate then they’ve got an All Black in the centre, they’ve got an All Black at 10 and they’ve got Jimmy Gopperth, a former All Black playing at 12 so they’ve got some real quality there, so we need to be on it.”
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