Mike Blair is confident he can work well with new recruit Steve Diamond as Edinburgh seek to rediscover the “ruthless edge” needed to fight their way into the URC play-offs.

Blair announced last month that he will step down at the end of the season after two years as the capital club’s head coach, having decided that he wants to focus on being an attack coach.

Diamond, the former director of rugby at Worcester Warriors and Sale Sharks, has come in for the rest of the campaign with the title of lead rugby consultant.

Blair’s collegiate approach to team-building may be at variance with Diamond’s reputation as a hard-nosed, demanding character, but the Scot believes that both he and the Englishman – who only took up his new post two days ago – can work well together in their bid to get Edinburgh back to winning ways.

“From my point of view at least, I think things are working really smoothly,” Blair said yesterday. “He’s here to help, be another ear, give us observations and use his experience to help me and the other coaches, and our leadership group, to finish the season on a high.

“I’ve not seen the hierarchy table. My understanding and Steve’s understanding is that we are working together, using our own individual skill sets to get the best out of the group.”

With just three games left in the regular season, Edinburgh face an uphill battle to get back into the top half of the table after a run that has seen them win only once in their last seven league outings.

But the number of narrow defeats they have suffered has convinced Blair that they are not too far away from getting some wins on the board, and he has taken encouragement from Diamond’s analysis of the team’s play.

“We’ve talked about us not being far off. We’ve looked at stats that he uses to measure where teams are at, and in those stats we’re sitting pretty high – in play-off places or above on most of those stats. We’re not far off; we’re doing lots of good things. We have six losing bonus points which could have gone the other way. It’s not broken: we just need to find a ruthless edge, when we get on top of teams, put them away.

“Steve doesn’t have any desire to be an on-field coach. He likes overseeing things and dealing with the off-field stuff, but at the same time he’s been a forwards coach. He’s been an on-field coach so of course we’re going to use that.

“He’s overseeing things, making sure everything is run smoothly. He’s got a lot of experience from different teams. I believe he’s really comfort-able with what he’s seen, but that mindset, that attitude and drive side of things is an area he will focus on.”

Asked who would pick the team, Blair added: “It will be a joint discussion. With Steve coming in just this week, we’ve had conversations about it, but it’s the same as me with the assistant coaches. I don’t just say, ‘This is the team’. We have a conversation, then we make a decision. Steve will be another opinion that joins that thinking pot.”

Diamond has already been linked with Bath for next season, so it remains to be seen if he will be with Edinburgh beyond the length of his present agreement. The same is true of Blair, who could be amenable to staying on at the club as attack coach if his as-yet-unknown successor thought the combination would work well.

“My position is that I’ll wait until a head coach is announced or found,” he said. “There will be conversations on both sides as to whether it fits for both of us, then we’ll see what happens.”

Scotland captain Jamie Ritchie is being rested this week, and there are a couple of unspecified injury doubts, but Blair will still have a pretty strong squad to choose from for Saturday’s match against Connacht.

Darcy Graham is in contention following his return from a knee injury, and Grant Gilchrist, who was sent off playing for Scotland against France, is also available after having his suspension reduced following the completion of a World Rugby tackle course.