Rugby: Edinburgh out to avoid an all-time low

Following a 17-26 home  defeat by Munster, the Capital outfit have a last opportunity  at Saracens on Sunday to avoid going through an entire  pool without a victory in the tournament’s current format.

Even more daunting is the need to reduce what is easily their worst scoring differential of -109 while a a dozen points are required to surpass the mere 40 registered by Italian side L’Aquila in a section comprising Wasps, Swansea and Stade Francais in 2000-01.

Laidlaw, needing no  reminding of what is at stake against the team who lead the group by three points, said: “We are just taking small steps to build us back to where we want to be and we’ve got a big test at Saracens next weekend.

“We’re going there to win the game, of course, but it will be a huge challenge. When they came up here they put 40 past us so it’s about us taking the small steps we’ve talked about.

“We need to get some pride back in the performance.

“Of course, it’s going to be tough to win away from home.

“They were (2010-11)

Premeirship champions and are coming off the back of a top performance in Racing Metro. I thought they were going to get hammered there for a while but they’ve got a lot of resolve so I’ll be interested to see how we come out of that.

“We want to win for Edinburgh Rugby and our supporters and, of course, it’s about winning games but we can’t go from way down here to way up there in one game.”

Two late touchdowns from Dougie Fife – his first in the tournament – put a gloss on yesterday’s scoreline.

Laidlaw added: “I’d have

hated to come out of another game with no tries and we did create opportunities and bust them open a fee times.

“So we’re steadily getting back to where we want to be. Small steps.

“Now we need to make sure we build on that going into the Saracens game.”