Rugby: Nick De Luca and Ross Rennie extend contracts at Edinburgh

De Luca and Ross Rennie have signed two-year extensions to their contracts, which were up for renewal this summer, and following John Barclay’s decision to stay with Glasgow at least for one more season it means that Rennie and his Warriors rival will continue to battle it out for the Scotland jersey on home territory.

While Barclay took several months to consider options before putting pen to paper on his deal last week, Rennie, who turns 26 today, acted swiftly.

“I got it and that was it,” he said. “It was quite easy in a way because I was very happy to be offered something here and to stay. I have grown up here and been here my whole career. I’m very happy in Edinburgh, and it means a lot to me to represent this club. With new signings coming in I think quite a lot is going to change, and it’s going to be an ambitious club next year. Speaking to Michael [Bradley], it’s looking good.”

Rennie has emerged from two years battling a serious knee injury to realise the potential to star on the international stage that many astute observers spoke of seeing in him as a teenager. He has claimed the No 7 jersey from Barclay this year and is keen to improve further. The key to that, he insisted, lay with his home city club and picking up from this year’s Heineken Cup run, and bouncing back from the dreadful league form, heading into 2012-13.

“There’s definitely a different atmosphere around the club at the moment,” he added. “There’s a lot of optimism about where we’re going and I’m looking forward to being a part of that.

“Hopefully we’ll get more people down to watch next season, with people maybe hearing some of the names that are coming, but right now I’m just looking forward to this weekend, next weekend and so on. We have had a tough time in the league, as we did in the Six Nations, and us [internationalists] coming back has brought a new bit of life to the people that were here.”