Mark Bennett lifts lid on his past Edinburgh struggles and the coaching change that reignited his career

Edinburgh centre set to rack up a century of appearances for capital club

Mark Bennett during an Edinburgh training session at Hive Stadium this week ahead of his 100th appearance. (Photo by Ewan Bootman / SNS Group)

Mark Bennett will make his 100th appearance for Edinburgh in Friday night’s game against Ospreys, cementing his status as one of the capital club’s most important and dependable players of recent seasons. But, as he reflected on his near-seven-year stint with the team earlier this week, the 31-year-old admitted that, for all that he may now feel at home in Edinburgh, his first few years after his move from Glasgow were fraught with difficulty.

To an extent, Bennett’s problems were easily foreseen when in 2017 he headed east after six years with the Warriors. Not only did he have a strong west-coast background as well as being seen as a key member of the Glasgow squad, he was also going to a team which, under head coach Richard Cockerill, played in a forward-dominated fashion which did not suit his style at all.

In such circumstances, it would always have taken Bennett a while to adapt to his new club, but in the event, injuries restricted his participation well into his second season. “As much as I’ll try and pretend I’m tough, I’ve had a few rubbish injuries that have really set me back,” he recalled. “That first 18 months I was at Edinburgh, I think I was injured for 12 of them. Moving club, I wanted to come in and make an impact, but I was sat in the physio room for a year.

“And I was trying to play a style that didn’t particularly work for me. I’m not the biggest man and I was asked to be a straight up-and-down ball-carrier. I’ll do my best, but at that point I was 87kgs and I couldn’t put on weight to save myself. It just doesn’t work.”

Thankfully, salvation for Bennett - and for those Edinburgh followers who had long hankered after a more expansive style of play - came in the 2021 appointment of Mike Blair as Cockerill’s successor. And, while Sean Everitt has made the odd pragmatic tweak or two since replacing Blair last year, the Scotland centre is now more than happy with the direction in which the team are heading.

“When Mike came in, and we started chucking the ball about a bit more, that was when I was me,” Bennett explained. “That was when I found my feet again and you started to see the better of me. And since then that’s just grown and grown. We’re playing a good brand of rugby, we’ve got a great home, we’ve got a great atmosphere here. The buzz around here on game day is great.

“And I think that all in all the club has taken massive steps forward and it’s now our job to keep building. There’s a good group of boys here who work really bloody hard and we owe it to ourselves to give ourselves a chance of winning something.

“I grew up a West Coaster and it was a big thing for me coming through east, but I’ve really made Edinburgh my home. I love it through here. I love the way we try and play our rugby and I think you’ve seen some of my best rugby whilst I’ve been here.

“I’m a much better rugby player than I was when I was through west. It’s been great and it’s been nice to see that development and growth – I was going to say maturity, but I’ve not matured that much!”

Everitt will announce his squad for the Ospreys match at lunchtime on Friday.