Edinburgh should beat Benetton in the shoot-out for a place in the URC end of season play-offs but a side jam-packed with so much talent should never have ended up in the last chance saloon when it came to qualification.
Questions have to be asked as to why Edinburgh head coach Sean Everitt hasn’t managed to get more out of his talented group of players.
Man for man his squad is on a par with Franco Smith’s at Glasgow Warriors but that is where the comparison ends.
Glasgow have qualified for the last eight with ease while the capital club has been bogged down in mid-table mediocrity.
Edinburgh’s indiscipline and inability to score tries are the two main reasons for them struggling to qualify for the play-offs. They are also in danger of not making it into the European Champions Cup because of their poor league form.
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The transfer of full-back Blair Kinghorn to Toulouse - the team he won a Champions Cup winners medal with after their weekend final win over Leinster- back in December and not having wingers Darcy Graham and Emiliano Boffelli available due to injury for most of the league campaign were blows but can’t be used as excuses for the pressure situation the club finds itself in.
They have decent strength in depth and were boosted by the arrival of Scotland and British and Irish Lions scrum-half Ali Price who moved from Glasgow Warriors, initially on loan, back in November.
Yet they still find themselves down in seventh position in the 16-team URC table, level on 49 points with Benetton and one place ahead of them due to a better points difference.
If they don’t finish in seventh or higher they won’t make next seasons Champions Cup because Sharks win over Gloucester in the Challenge Cup final at the weekend gives the South African side one of the spots set aside for the URC clubs so the number who go into the top European tournament drops from eight to seven.
Play-off wise if Edinburgh lose to Benetton next weekend and don’t pick up any losing bonus points they will have to hope other results go their way if they want to make the last eight.
The Lions, who play Stormers in their final fixture, are on the same 49 point total as Edinburgh and Benetton. Connacht who take on Leinster and Ospreys who face Cardiff are on 45 points each and could still pip Edinburgh in the race to the play-offs.
The pressure is really on Edinburgh coach Everitt to make sure his team play to their full potential against Benetton and their most experienced players must stand up to be counted.
Fly-half Ben Healy - their top points scorer - has been solid rather than spectacular with his consistent goal kicking getting his team out of some tricky situations. Keeping the scoreboard ticking over won’t be enough against Benetton.
He needs to get the ball out to his back line more as early tries will be needed to see off the Italian side that will be treating this match like a cup final.
Duhan van der Merwe needs to come off his wing and look for the ball more in the Stadio Comunale di Monigo next Saturday lunchtime because three tries in ten league matches is slim pickings for a British and Irish Lion.
Edinburgh has the forward pack - especially Bill Mata and WP Nel in some of their final games for the club - who can lay the foundation for a victory but the backs need to get more involved than they have been.
While Edinburgh sweat over whether they will make the top eight for Glasgow Warriors it is just a question of whether they will finish in the top four - they are currently in fourth spot- that will secure a home quarter-final.
That will almost certainly happen as they take on URC bottom club Zebre at Scotstoun next Friday in their final game of the season.
The Italian side has won just one match in the league and will be cannon fodder for a Glasgow side that look certain to pick up a bonus point victory that will at least consolidate fourth place or maybe even move them higher up the table.
How the fortunes of Edinburgh and Glasgow have changed since February when the capital club were pushing their domestic rivals hard. They were fourth in the URC table, a place and a point behind the Warriors, and just four points off Leinster who were then top.
Since Edinburgh beat Zebre 24-19 in Treviso on February 16 their form has been patchy and the tries not as forthcoming which is part of the reason they find themselves among the teams scrapping it out for a final play-off place.
A breakdown of the official URC figures for Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors’ first sixteen league games show where the problems have been this season.
As mentioned earlier Edinburgh struggle to score tries and their discipline has been terrible. Glasgow have also struggled to stay on the right side of the referee but have bailed themselves out by scoring a bucket load of tries.
Edinburgh has scored 384 league points in their first 16 games which isn’t great and puts them down in 9th place out of the 16 league teams for total points scored. What is even worse is that they have scored just 45 tries. That is the 10th lowest total out of all the teams.
With the star-studded attacking players -Duhan van der Merwe the main one- they have on their books that is not good enough. Their top league try scorer is hooker Ewan Ashman with six.
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Edinburgh’s lack of discipline has been dreadful and only two teams have been penalised more than them for overall offences. They have picked up 12 yellow cards which is more than any other URC team.
They have conceded 156 penalties which makes them the 12th worst offenders in the league. Thirty-two of those penalties have come at the scrum with only five clubs having conceded fewer than them. Things are different at the line-out with their 12 set piece offences making them the 14th worst offenders in the league in that vital area.
Glasgow Warriors has scored 460 league points -the third highest number in the URC. They have run in 68 tries - the third highest in the league - and 23 more touchdowns than Edinburgh. Their top try scorer is hooker Johnny Matthews with twelve which is the highest total in the league.
Glasgow’s discipline has been nearly as bad as Edinburgh’s and only four teams have been penalised more than them. They have had nine yellow cards with only five teams picking up more.
They have conceded 161 penalties making them the 14th worst offenders in the league. Thirty-one of the penalties have been given away at the scrum with only four other teams conceding less than that. At the lineout, their six offences is the eighth-highest total in the league.
Thank goodness for Glasgow’s sake that they can score tries consistently to compensate for their indiscipline. That is why they are further up the table than Edinburgh who are facing their most important fixture against Benetton that they have to win to salvage something from their season.
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