Injuries and the need to rest key internationals mean that Edinburgh will be below full strength when they travel to play the Scarlets in Wales tomorrow.
Both their usual captains, Mike Blair and Allister Hogg, picked up injuries on Scotland duty — despite Blair being left out of the starting XV and Hogg never featuring in a match-day 22 — while the club feel they have to rest Phil Godman and Ross Ford.
With only one week of Magners League action before the club head into vital Heineken Cup matches, they are hoping that both Blair and Hogg make quick recoveries, but Rob Moffat, the head coach, admitted yesterday they have no clear idea of how long the pair will be out.
“Mike Blair is in a support boot at the moment, and we cannot be sure when that will come off,” Moffat said. “Realistically, if he is not able to train early next week, he would struggle to make the team to play Bath at the weekend. It should not be long term, but it might be more than another week. As for Ally [Hogg], he injured a hip, again in Scotland training, and is going for a scan. Until we know the result of that, we have no idea how bad it is or how long he might be out.”
In the absence of the two usual captains, Chris Paterson leads the side, aiming to make a point to Andy Robinson, the Scotland head coach, who left him on the bench for the entire autumn campaign.
Advertisement
“He has missed a couple of games for us as well so at the moment he is definitely light in terms of the amount of rugby he has played,” Moffat said. “He is fit and sharp and he will take the captaincy in his stride.”
Set against the new injuries, there was delight in the Edinburgh camp at being able to call David Callam, the Scotland No 8, back into the squad after a nightmare year when a minor medical investigation revealed that he needed major surgery to remove a large cyst from his hip.
“It was an horrific injury, so it is good to see him back in the squad,” Moffat said. “He has done superbly well, he has been to hell and back, but seems to have come through. The injury he had is a one-off but now that he is back we all wish him all the best. It is just like having a new player.”
Callam is close to being joined on the comeback trail by Ross Rennie, who has been out for even longer after tearing knee ligaments and then aggravating the injury when he tried to make his comeback last year. With that experience behind them, the club’s medics are taking his recovery cautiously but he could come into contention for one of this month’s games.
Not that it will be easy for him to win his place back. While Rennie has been out, Alan Macdonald has come through to win his first cap and tomorrow he will again team up with Roddy Grant as Edinburgh stick with their policy of playing two specialist opensides.
Advertisement
“We are all good mates,” Grant said. “It’s brilliant for them, they have had a long, really hard struggle and now it is brilliant for all of us in training and able to feed off each other.”
The key to this game — which could see Edinburgh top the Magners League if they win and other results go their way, or could see them drop to fifth or lower if they lose — will be how the Scotland players readjust to being back in club colours, a task that Tom Smith, the forwards coach, looks at with confidence.
“My experience is that you come out of these international periods flying,” Smith said. “You are fit, with three very hard games, and have trained hard. It is a good chance to come back and make a positive impact.”
Edinburgh: C Paterson (captain); M Robertson, B Cairns, N De Luca, T Visser; D Blair, G Laidlaw; A Jacobsen, A Kelly, G Cross, S Turnbull, S MacLeod, A MacDonald, R Grant, S Newlands. Replacements: R Ford, K Traynor, C Hamilton, D Callam, R Samson, J Houston, J Thompson.