Bumper crowd heading for Murrayfield to see 1872 Cup clash

MORE than 10,000 tickets have been sold for this evening’s first 1872 Cup clash of the season between Edinburgh and Glasgow as talk of a feelgood factor in Scottish rugby begins to spread.

The recent moves by the Scottish Rugby Union to lift the depression which had returned to the Scottish game earlier this year, and led to the resignation of chief executive Gordon McKie, have strengthened the Glasgow team in particular.

Samoan World Cup winger David Lemi joined the Warriors until the end of the season, filling the void left by injury to Canadian star DTH van der Merwe, and then Scotland full-back Rory Lamont agreed a deal to leave high-spending French club Toulon that could see him finish his career in Glasgow. Rory’s brother Sean, who has 60 Scotland caps, has also agreed a return next summer, while most of Glasgow’s top young talents have re-signed and full-back Stuart Hogg is expected to tie up his first senior pro contract in the near future.

Edinburgh’s plans for strengthening their squad have also been backed, and officials hope to have deals signed with new faces for the capital club early in the New Year.

Both Rory Lamont and Lemi are named in the Glasgow team to face their age-old rivals at Murrayfield in a game which kicks off at 5:35pm to suit television coverage from BBC Alba.

Glasgow hold the 1872 Cup – marking the first year the two city teams first played each other – but they have never won at Murrayfield in the first match of the two-legged series, which this year concludes at Firhill next Sunday, 1 January.

Glasgow are on an unprecedented run of seven wins and two draws from their last ten matches which has taken them to fifth in the RaboDirect PRO12, one point behind Munster in third, and keeps hopes alive at least of reaching the Amlin Challenge Cup quarter-finals if not the Heineken Cup last eight this season.

With two pool matches remaining, Edinburgh currently top their Heineken Cup group on tries scored from Cardiff, and while they have tough games with Racing Metro and London Irish to finish, they have their best chance to make the knockout stages since their sole quarter-final appearance under Frank Hadden in 2004.

However, they endured a poor start to the league and languish nine points behind the Warriors, and so are desperately in need of a victory today.

This is a first taste of the fixture for Edinburgh’s Irish coach Michael Bradley, but Glasgow coach Sean Lineen played for Edinburgh against Glasgow in the old inter-city rivalry, and is now a veteran of the pro teams as a coach.

He believes that the two teams have rarely had the strength in depth and exciting players they now possess, which is why the crowd record of more than 12,000 is expected to be beaten and bring a tangible indicator of the feelgood factor.

However, Lineen still anticipates a ferocious battle that will prove too tight to call. “It is all about individuals and how they handle the pressure and take their chances,” he said. “I have mixed memories over the last few years. They are always tight games and it always comes down to individual decisions.

“They are scoring tries, they are doing well. We are not doing too badly either. Is it a clash of styles? Maybe. We will see.”