Sean Everitt in contract talks with Edinburgh Rugby and role family will play in decision

South African coach keen to extend stay in the capital after impressive start

Edinburgh Rugby senior coach Sean Everitt during a training session at Hive Stadium. (Photo by Ewan Bootman / SNS Group)

Sean Everitt is in talks to extend his contract with Edinburgh Rugby after making an impressive start to his career in the capital.

The South African said he was very keen to stay and would discuss the matter with his family over the next few days. The 53-year-old was appointed in July as “senior coach” on a one-year contract, taking over from Mike Blair who announced in February that he would be stepping down at the end of the campaign.

Everitt has reinvigorated a club which finished 12th in the United Rugby Championship last season and failed to qualify for the Champions Cup. Although they suffered a setback last Friday when they lost to Glasgow Warriors in the first leg of the 1872 Cup, Edinburgh sit seventh in the United Rugby Championship with five wins and three defeats as the regular season approaches its halfway point. They are also handily placed in the EPCR Challenge Cup after a win over Castres earlier this month.

“We are negotiating for me to stay on at the moment,” Everitt said. “I’ve got my family here and it’s something that we’ll discuss over the next few days. I’m very keen to stay. Like I’ve said before, I’m not a coach that enjoys jumping from club to club. Building relationships with players and making them better is what I see as a reward in my job, so if I’m able to stay on and build structures around Edinburgh Rugby not only in the URC and in the EPCR that would be great.”

Prior to his arrival in Scotland, Everitt’s professional career was spent in South Africa where he had a 15-year association with the Sharks. His son Christian is a promising hooker and recently signed for the Durban-based club while his wife Jacqui remains in South Africa.

“If I had a long-term contract, my wife would come up,” Everitt added. “My younger son has got a contract at the Sharks for two years, and my older son is just waiting for his results in his final board exam, then he qualifies as a CA. So he’ll probably stay in South Africa.”

A new deal for Everitt would also presumably see him given the “head coach” title which was strangely missing when he was appointed. Talking about his coaching philosophy, Everitt said he has been trying to utilise Edinburgh’s abundant attacking talent but making sure it is used in the right way.

“I think for me it was just giving the guys a clear plan, and then obviously building the game, not only from an attack point of view but from a defensive and game-management point of view too. Edinburgh - rightly with the attack that they have - have played from all areas of the field. In the modern game that’s not always possible now, so to manage the game is really important. And I feel we’re still growing in that area, but we’ve made a big improvement.”

Everitt will hope the improvement continues in Saturday’s 1872 Cup second leg as he tries to turn around the 22-10 defeat his club suffered at a rain-lashed Scotstoun last Friday. A crowd of over 30,000 is expected for this weekend’s match at Murrayfield, which would be a new record for the fixture. Everitt said that it reflects well on the clubs.

“We’re very pleased with how the ticket sales have gone, and I think both teams in Scotland deserve that,” he said. “They’re in the top eight in the URC and both teams play good rugby. So I think it’s going to be an awesome afternoon for the Scottish supporters to be able to come and watch their team, whichever one it is. But at the same time I think it’s just reward for the players and the effort that they’ve put in that they’re able to play in front of a crowd like that at home.

“We’ve broken records at the Hive as well but obviously Glasgow is a big one and it’s up to us to put on a good display of rugby. What you saw last Friday night in those conditions, it was tough, but you had two teams going as hard as they could at each other and it was a massive physical battle for us. This week it looks like the conditions will be slightly better so hopefully there will be more entertaining rugby.”

Everitt said that switching the game from the Hive to Murrayfield would not cause him to change the way he approaches it and the coach is looking forward to having another go at Glasgow.

“What’s good for us is you get a second bite at the same plan and it’s about executing it more accurately,” he said. “We know now what worked and what didn’t work and the things that didn’t work we need to get better at or change. And obviously there are things we did well and we need to stick to them. The guys have bought into it in training. We know what let us down in that game. We were leading at 10-8, although under the pump from the number of penalties we conceded consecutively. But we were leading 10-8 on 65 minutes then got the yellow card and conceded two tries. We knew we were in it all the way along and we just need to tidy up the discipline.”

James Lang, the Edinburgh centre, will miss the match after suffering a shoulder injury in the first leg. Everitt expects him to return in a couple of weeks.