Richard Cockerill: Third derby should be at Myreside

Tomorrow evening sees the first inter-city meeting at BT Murrayfield (5.10pm) with a return at Scotstoun the following Saturday. The revamped Guinness Pro14 has led to a rejigged fixture list this term and there will be three Scottish derbies during the regular season with a move to a Test-style series instead of the previous aggregate system to determine the winners of the trophy.

The assumption was that the third match this season, on the last weekend in April, would be back at the national stadium and, if there is a prospect of a big crowd, there may be pressure on the SRU to cash-in but Cockerill has made it clear that his preference would be packing out the 5,500-capacity Myreside.

“Myreside is our home ground. If we want to build the culture of the club we need our home stadium,” said the coach.

“For me, personally, as many big games we play at Myreside and sell the place out the better. But my job is to get the performance right so I’ll leave that to other people.”

Ticket sales for tomorrow’s game hit 20,000 yesterday with hopes that a record crowd can be achieved, beating the 23,500 who attended two years ago.

“They [Glasgow] are very used to Murrayfield,” added the Edinburgh coach.

“It has a great surface and a full size pitch and that will suit some teams against us.

“Purely from an Edinburgh point of view, we need to play as many games as possible at our home ground, Myreside, and make that as difficult a place to come as any other home ground.”