Door still ajar for Edinburgh despite Gwent hammering

SO MANY games are termed 'do-or-die' at this stage of the season one could be forgiven for believing that Edinburgh would be crawling into some graves this week after their mauling at the hands of Newport Gwent Dragons last Sunday.

Such is the work of the capital side earlier in the season, however, that while the seven-try demolition they endured at Newport has put them on the outer ring in the chase for Magners League play-off spots, they are not out of it. The Ospreys and Munster meet tonight in Limerick and so victory tomorrow over Ulster at Murrayfield could leave Edinburgh in fourth spot by the end of the weekend, or even joint third were those two to fight out a low-scoring draw.

Then, Edinburgh would face a final weekend trip to Leinster in a fortnight's time, while Munster, Glasgow and the Ospreys have Welsh opposition.

Coach Rob Moffat has handed the captain's reins to Roddy Grant, arguably his most dynamic and aggressive player, while the similarly feisty scrum-half Greig Laidlaw is preferred to Mike Blair, the Scotland captain who has struggled for consistency. Blair may not be happy at starting again on the bench, but he shares the desire to put things right.

"We have been pretty devastated with the last couple of weeks," he said. "But we do still have a chance to make the play-offs. Glasgow will be fairly confident now, and the Ospreys and Munster play each other, so it might be out of our hands, but we have to win and keep our fingers crossed.

"We have put the pressure on ourselves with poor performances away from home, against Connacht and the Dragons, but there has to be that belief that we can still do it. I obviously want to get out on that pitch and right the wrongs because everyone was embarrassed by that display in Newport."

Ulster have lost their last four league matches and are now level on points with Connacht, and so could drop out of Ireland's three Heineken Cup qualification spots for next season. The province believe that could cost them 250,000 and while an Irish win in this year's Heineken Cup, or if Connacht win the Amlin Challenge Cup would see all four provinces go into the top competition, they cannot afford to bank on that.

Edinburgh: B Cairns, T Visser, N De Luca, J Houston, M Robertson, P Godman, G Laidlaw, A Jacobsen, R Ford, G Cross, S MacLeod, J Hamilton, A MacDonald, D Callam, R Grant (capt). Subs: A Kelly, K Traynor, F McKenzie, S Newlands, M Blair, A Turnbull, J Thompson.

Ulster: J Smith, A Trimble, D Cave, I Whitten, S Danielli, N O'Connor, P Marshall, T Court, R Best (capt), BJ Botha, E O'Donoghue, D Tuohy, S Ferris, W Faloon, R Diack. Subs: A Kyricaou, B Young, R Caldwell, TJ Anderson, I Boss, I Humphreys, N Spence.