Edinburgh have the required steel to reach Pro14 final, says Richard Cockerill

Coach backs his players to beat Ulster and take the next step

Bill Mata passes to Hamish Watson during an Edinburgh training session ahead of the Pro14 semi-final. Picture: Mark Scates/SNS

Semi-finals are notoriously unforgiving, so near and yet so far from the grand occasion with the ever-present fear of misfiring when it matters and ending up as largely forgotten losers.

Richard Cockerill has experienced a few penultimate-stage dogfights as both player and coach and has spent this week preparing an Edinburgh squad largely unfamiliar with such games for the Guinness Pro14 last-four clash against Ulster at BT Murrayfield.

The home coach is not expecting an entertaining spectacle on Saturday night and asked if these tense occasions were ones he loved or dreaded, the former Leicester and England hooker said: “Probably a little bit of both. Losing a semi is really painful because you don’t get to the big day out.

Edinburgh head coach Richard Cockerill. Picture: Mark Scates/SNS

“The thing we’ve talked about all week is not how good it would be to win, let’s just deal with the 80 minutes in front of us. We’ve tried to have a pretty
relaxed week, not put too much heat on the players and tried to just prepare as normal.

“We haven’t approached it as a special one-off game, it has been about going out and doing what we have done in the other 20-odd games we’ve played this season. We’ve got a good record at home and good win ratio home and away across the season, so we just need to go out and put our best game on the field, and if we do that we’ll give ourselves the best opportunity.”

Cockerill has named a strong team, with locks Ben Toolis returning from injury and Grant Gilchrist from a rest weekend to turbo charge the engine room. Mark Bennett is back at centre to provide some strike power in the midfield and Scotland flanker Jamie Ritchie is back on the bench after recovering from a dislocated finger.

Cockerill said the eve of the big game had been relaxed.

Edinburgh's Jamie Ritchie has recovered from injury and is named on the bench to face Ulster. Picture: SNS

“The captain’s run today was very calm,” said the coach on Friday. “There was no beating the drum because there is no point. We just went through some technical stuff and the boys did a bit of add-ons to make sure they were happy with stuff.

“We know what we want to do so let’s just get ourselves in the head space to deliver what we say. It’s an individual thing now for players to get themselves into a place mentally and physically to deliver, and that will plug in to what we do as a team.”

Cockerill welcomed the return of Test quality reinforcements after the low-key loss to Glasgow a week past Friday.

“Without doubt. When teams get announced it is very psychological,” he said. “People start looking down our team-sheet – Sutherland, McInally, Nel, Toolis, Gilchrist, Bradbury, Watson, Mata – you’ve got a bit of steel there, and then you look at the steel to come off the bench. So, psychologically for us, it is huge to have those guys back. Jamie Ritchie has been a huge player for Scotland and for us this season, George Taylor has been really strong for us.

“We’ve got a good squad, they’ve got a good squad, they’ve got all the history of being in these types of games, but we should have the energy and desire to want to prove that we can take the next step.”

Cockerill sensed that his players did feel that, for all the sense of calm, there was something different to this week and a huge prize waiting tantalisingly at the end of it.

“There’s that little bit of tetchiness around training, of competitiveness,” he said. “Some guys are obviously very disappointed they are not starting, so that always lends an edge to training.

“Jamie’s good. He had quite a nasty dislocation of his finger, which is now good to go. He’s done everything this week; he’s desperate to play.

“Guys like Luke Crosbie and Nick Haining that have been left out of the 23 are very, very good players, very disappointed, but have got on with their work this week and have made it an intense week, ready to play. [Pierre] Schoeman wants to start but he hasn’t played as well as [Rory] Sutherland in the last couple of weeks, so Sutherland gets to start [at loosehead].

“We’ve got a hungry squad, we’re pretty much picking from a full-strength team – only Henry Pyrgos really who would come into consideration is unavailable [with concussion]. So we’ve got what we’ve got and we’ve got to go and deliver.

“Due to the circumstances of having no crowd, it would obviously have been a huge occasion for both clubs at a fantastic stadium at Murrayfield. So we know what’s at stake, we know that it’s the first time for us to be in this situation, but we’re ready to enjoy the game.”

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