1872 Cup: Mike Blair confident Edinburgh are on right track ahead of return against Glasgow Warriors

Mike Blair is confident that his Edinburgh side remain on the right track despite losing three of their last four games, and believes that run of results could have been regarded as a positive sign had it occurred last season.

Head coach Mike Blair leads an Edinburgh Rugby training session ahead of the 1872 Cup 2nd leg against Glasgow Warriors at Murrayfield. (Photo by Mark Scates / SNS Group)

The capital club have beaten Castres in the Champions Cup this month, but have also been defeated by Saracens in Europe as well as losing to Munster and Glasgow in the URC. They face another demanding match against the Warriors at BT Murrayfield on Friday in the return leg of the 1872 Cup, then next month have what should be a more straightforward league game against Zebre before the reverse fixtures in the Champions Cup.

Head coach Blair admitted last night that there were some parts of his team’s recent performances that he was not happy with. But he believes the quality of the opposition in those defeats has to be taken into account, and suggested that criticism of Edinburgh was in part an indication of how high expectations have become.

“I’m confident of the direction we’re going in,” he said. “We’ve played really difficult teams. This is a really testing period for the club, and I believe that we’re doing the right thing.

“I believe that over the season we’re playing good rugby. We’ve had a few areas where we’ve dropped off a little bit, but we’re playing good teams, some away from home.

“The URC is a different competition from previous years, when Cheetahs and Kings were playing. They have been replaced by four absolutely top-level South African teams. And on top of that the Irish teams have gone consistently well, the Ospreys are stacked with internationals, Scarlets and Cardiff have got strong squads.

“This is a tough competition and we’re going to go through times when things are a little bit tougher. We’re going to keep plugging away. We’re confident in what we’re trying to do and we believe we’re heading in the right direction.”

The frustrating thing for Blair is that he could easily have been looking at three wins out of four rather than three losses. Edinburgh were well beaten by Munster, but they earned losing bonuses against Saracens and Glasgow.

“We have been competitive,” he continued. “You can’t win every game.

“We felt the Saracens game was one that slipped through the net a bit. It would have given us a lot of momentum for this tough period, but we played really well and we got a bonus point from it. Castres was a bit sticky, but it was a bonus-point win in the Champions Cup.

“The great thing is that the standards are being set higher. Potentially, last season if we had the same kind of results then it would say we were heading in the right direction and it was positive.

“Because of the expectations now of our crowd, and within ourselves, we want to be winning every game. Suddenly when you don’t, against top-quality opposition, it seems that things are tougher than they are.”

Lock forward Sam Skinner could return to action on Friday, having been sidelined since damaging a foot in Scotland’s game against Australia at the start of November.

Backs Blair Kinghorn, Mark Bennett and Wes Goosen should also be available again after missing the first leg at Scotstoun because of injury, but Chris Dean is out after suffering concussion in that game.