Finally it is time to get the season up and running
It has been the longest close season on record.
Six months have passed since Edinburgh’s disappointing season fizzled out, five since Glasgow Warriors lost the Challenge Cup final, and at last the United Rugby Championship is ready to kick off a new campaign at the weekend.
The capital club are first into action, with a difficult trip to Dragons on Saturday.
They suffered a turbulent 2022-23 campaign, in which head coach Mike Blair decided halfway through that he wanted out.
Veteran Steve Diamond came in to steady the ship, and he has now been succeeded by South African Sean Everitt.
Edinburgh finished a lowly 12th 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 repair the squad’s wounded self-belief, telling them that they can be a lot more competitive with just a few minor changes to the way they play. And lock forward Glen Young, for one, has bought into that message.
“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 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 did not have his problems to seek at first: 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.”
Both teams will be without their Scotland World Cup players for the first few weeks. Glasgow will also miss Tonga’s Sione Vailanu, while Argentinian Emiliano Boffelli and Fiji’s Bill Mata will be absent from the Edinburgh ranks.