Edinburgh told to focus on themselves and not others

Edinburgh assistant coach Stevie Scott. Pic: SNS

Last Friday night’s 27-19 loss at Munster, coupled with the Ospreys’ 40-27 victory over the Cardiff Blues, left Edinburgh in eighth spot in the table with one regular season match  remaining.

They are five points behind sixth placed Munster and Alan Solomons’ men need to defeat the Blues at BT Murrayfield on Saturday with a bonus point and hope that Munster and the  Ospreys both lose their matches.

That would see them sneak into sixth spot and secure a European Rugby Champions Cup place for 2016/17 – and Scott is after one last big performance from the side.

“Saturday is about us putting a performance together for the last game of the season and then seeing what happens off the back of that,” Scott, pictured below, said. “We can’t have any worry about the results that are getting fed into us from elsewhere, it is really irrelevant if we don’t do our job.”

“We have to do what we can and that is to win with a bonus point.

“Our attack is something that has always been evolving. We have been working on it and it will get better. If you break down our attack against Munster at the weekend there it was actually quite good.

“We are going to have to attack against the Blues, we are not going to score four tries without attacking and we may have to take some risks to get that extra fourth try.

“The boys realise that we have a lifeline. We’re strong and difficult to beat at home. This weekend we need to be even more difficult to beat and we need to score tries.”

Once again in Cork last Friday night Edinburgh’s discipline let them down at times, while Scott was disappointed that the intensity was lacking from the team in such a big encounter.

“Against Munster it was more the actual turnovers, we didn’t get penalised that much at the breakdown – I think we had three for not rolling away and one for coming in at the side – but they counter rucked us pretty well and turned over three or four balls that way,” he said.

“Our breakdown work wasn’t good enough and our intensity wasn’t there either throughout the whole game, which you would expect in a big one like that and that will be addressed this week.

“It is a difficult one because when the game comes around you are passing the responsibility onto the players and we want them to be up there at the levels of intensity required.

“We look at everything, but it is hard to put a finger on it when things don’t go quite right.”

Meanwhile, Scott is looking forward to working with Kevin Bryce next season and helping facilitate his move from hooker to tighthead prop as back-up to WP Nel.

The former Heriot’s  front-rower is moving to the Capital along with his brother Glenn and Duncan Weir from Glasgow Warriors.

Scott said: “Kevin’s a  quality player and he’s played Test match rugby. He’s a good athlete and a good rugby player who is very mobile and strong over the ball.

“He’s got some work to do over the summer to get used to his new position and I’m confident that we can get him through a lot of technical work and get him ready to play PRO12 rugby next year.

“Everything we do with him in the coming months will be focused on the set piece.”