Edinburgh head coach has to ‘rebuild from bottom up’

AS THEY home in on a new head coach for Edinburgh, the SRU have admitted that improving the capital side’s fortunes will be a major project over the next few seasons.

Mark Dodson, the union’s chief executive, has just returned from South Africa where he met with Alan Solomons, the former Springbok, Ulster and Northampton head coach. The 62-year-old is director of rugby at the Southern Kings, South ­Africa’s new Super Rugby ­franchise on the Eastern Cape, whose fixtures end in mid-July.

Dodson insisted that he was just one of several coaches he has met in recent weeks, but added that he expects the new man to be at Murrayfield in August to start a major revamp of the club.

“Edinburgh is going to be reconstructed,” he said. “We had a European Cup semi-final that probably masked some of the structural problems underneath the Edinburgh business.

“The fact of the matter is that the big difference between ­Glasgow and Edinburgh is that Edinburgh’s signings didn’t work, didn’t fire, whereas the signings that were made in ­Glasgow all worked.

“What Gregor [Townsend] has done has made them much more of an attacking threat, while still being difficult to beat, but there is a soft core at the ­centre of Edinburgh; there is not that team ethic and they don’t seem to be able to bring that level of competitiveness.

“That’s why we are taking so long to find a head coach. We want someone who can instil that competitiveness into the club. They have to start again from first principles by building the club from the ground up. We have been working flat out since Michael Bradley left us. We have talked to a variety of ­coaches . . . but at the moment nothing is decided.”

Some, including Carl Hogg, the new Worcester head coach, and Sale’s Bryan Redpath turned down the opportunity, and there remains a scepticism about the SRU’s ability to improve the Capital club while acting in the dual, and sometimes conflicting interests of the national team and pro side.

Glasgow have undoubtedly benefited in the past from being at arm’s length to the SRU’s ­Murrayfield headquarters, and more successfully grown an identity supporters have warmed to, but Dodson insisted there was now no difference.

“The two clubs both have exactly the same event in terms of cash,” he said. “They have the same involvement with the SRU management, the same back-up and go through the same contracting panel, but the [player] budget has been spent more wisely in Glasgow than it has in Edinburgh.

“I accept that they [Edinburgh] probably do need a new home and we are trying to find a new home, but it is incredibly difficult to find a site in Edinburgh that can be developed.

“We are looking at every site that comes up and are talking to the council. The obvious one is Meadowbank, but there are ­political issues around that we are not privy to.”

He revealed that Edinburgh had also been offered Sean Maitland, but that they did not require a back-three player, and that money was available for the new head coach to bring in a similar ‘marquee’ player outside of the £4.2m player budget agreed for next season.

Dodson added that as part of Edinburgh’s stated desire to become an east coast club, they are also in talks with Borders rugby clubs about staging the pre-season match with Newcastle at a Borders ground and are looking at the potential for holding another game north of the Forth.