Gilchrist feels he has calibre to be trophy hunter at last
Edinburgh lock knows ‘ it’s time to step up’ in bid for club history
GRANT GILCHRIST may take a brief moment ahead of tomorrow night’s Guinness PRO14 play- off semi- final clash against Ulster to savour reaching 150 matches in Edinburgh colours, but it won’t last long because the 30- year- old insists that he has no interest at this stage of his career in looking back over his shoulder.
A keen student of the game, he will readily analyse previous matches – particularly the several near misses the club has suffered in knock- out contests over the years – to glean an insight in what needs to be done differently this time in order to succeed, but that’s as far as it will go. For all Gilchrist’s many achievements in the game, he is acutely aware that he hasn’t ever won anything meaningful in Edinburgh colours, and he knows that time is running out for him to right that wrong.
“We were unlucky against Munster last year [ in the quarter- final of the Heineken Cup] and were really hard on ourselves because we dominated the game and didn’t win it,” he said. “No- one wants that feeling from this game: we’re not plucky losers, it’s time to step up. That’s what excites me and the rest of the boys, you do all this preparation to play in these big games, and when you get into them you’ve got to win them. Winning silverware is something I want from my career and why not this year when we’re two games away?
“Clearly we can be consistent over a number of games which is something that during my time at the club we’ve struggled with,” he continued. “In the early years we were good enough to beat anyone on our day, but consistency in our performance is the biggest difference in the last few years. Now it’s about: can we stand up on the big occasion and deliver? And I think it’s time for us to step up as a team.
“It doesn’t just happen overnight – you can’t just look at the Irish provinces and say ‘ that’s where we want to be’ – you have to look at how you become that, and that’s about how we prepare and how we build consistency in performance. We have to understand the process of how we get there by controlling what we do and making sure we keep getting better. I believe we can have sustained success at this club and one day have that history behind us so that teams will have that feeling going into games against us that ‘ Edinburgh know how to win these big games’.
“We’re trying to forge our own history. What a great opportunity to be the first Edinburgh team to win silverware – it is an opportunity like no other.”
When fit, Gilchrist was always a guiding light in an Edinburgh team that too often flattered to deceive, but has really flourished in the last three years – partly because he has had an injury- free run after a period of horrendous luck between 2014 and 2016, and partly because Richard Cockerill has instilled an ethos in the squad which is ideally suited to the player’s uncompromising approach.
“We worked hard before and wanted to do well, but there’s a difference between wanting to do well and doing the right things day- in and day- out,” he said. “I think we probably didn’t work hard enough [ before]. Cockers has opened our eyes to a different level.
“We’ve certainly strengthened our squad, we’ve got the strongest squad now that we’ve had in my time at the club and that obviously helps, but the level of our training has gone up and that’s what makes the difference on a Saturday.
“I think he’s always going to pick players and create a culture that sits well with him,” he added. “There are non- negotiables in the way you train, behave and prepare for games and I think that’s in his own image, but it’s in an image that he also knows has worked for him in the past. That experience of winning as a coach and a player, he knows what it takes and that’s why he wants players to take on those characteristics.”
That three- point defeat suffered at the hands of Ulster in the semi- final of the Heineken Cup back in 2012 will certainly spur the Edinburgh man on, but he believes a more relevant experience for the group was last year’s loss to Munster.
“We coughed up some silly penalties in that last ten minutes which led to us going from up by two or three points to conceding a penalty midpitch, getting pushed back into our 22 and Munster scoring,” he grimaced. “So, we are looking at how we can control that mid- pitch area, what decisions we take individually and how we control discipline.
“When we get chances on Saturday, we need to turn them into points, that’s the key to these games when you expect it to be tight and physical.”
Why not this year when we’re just two games away?