Cockerill won’t rush transition to new stadium
Edinburgh finish mini Murrayfield
IT has been almost three years in the making, so Richard Cockerill has got used to waiting and is now in no rush to get his team playing matches at their recently completed, custombuilt stadium on the back-pitches at Murrayfield. He says the players have enjoyed training on the state-of-the-art 3G playing surface, but they won’t get to test it out as their new home venue until they can mark the occasion in style.
“It has been difficult for everybody in the world that we’ve been living in, and like everybody we want to get back to normality as soon as possible, so when we can have the opening of the stadium against a big team – to make it an event that the supporters can look forward to and be proud of – then we will,” he said.
“We don’t want to be playing behind closed doors and the first impression of it is not the right experience of how we want the stadium to be.
“The plan was to have Leicester up at the beginning of this season to open the stadium but obviously it wasn’t to be because of Covid. I’m not sure when next pre-season will be but come August or September, we’d love to have a big team come up to open the stadium, and we can sell-out on a nice sunny day.”
The new facility has cost £5.7million to construct and has capacity for 7,800 fans, consisting of around 5,800 seated and 2,000 standing. It has not been a straightforward project with the initial construction (after the plans were unveiled in May 2018) held up by planning issues and then Covid interrupting the completion phase.
“It has been a huge investment financially and emotionally to get to where we are today, and it shows that we are building the club in the right direction,” said Cockerill. “We’re slowly building a strong squad on the field to become more successful and now we have a facility to match that, so when people come to watch us, whether they are home or away supporters they walk away with a positive experience of it.”
Meanwhile, Cockerill’s primary focus this week is on Saturday night’s PRO14 clash against Munster in the main bowl at Murrayfield, and he is looking forward to welcoming hooker Dave Cherry, secondrow Grant Gilchrist and standoff Jaco van der Walt – who have all been released from the Scotland set-up for the week – back into the fold. While Darcy Graham is unavailable this week due to a thigh issue, he is expected to be fit to play against France the following week if that game goes ahead. Blair Kinghorn is still struggling with a wrist injury.
Elsewhere, the disjointed nature of the 2020-21 season so far has been tough for everyone involved in professional rugby, but for the likes of Glasgow Warriors hooker Johnny Matthews, the level of frustration is heightened by the knowledge that each cancelled or postponed game is one less opportunity to make his case for a contract extension beyond the end of the season.
Warriors have managed only two matches since their painful 42-0 thumping at the hands of Exeter Chiefs on 13th December meaning that Friday’s visit of Ulster cannot come quickly enough for Matthews and his team-mates.
With Fraser Brown injured and George Turner on international duty, he is up against Scotland training squad member Grant Stewart and Mesu Dolokoto for a jersey.
“I was frustrated last week with our Benetton game being called off – the whole squad was because we had prepared really well – but the players and the coaches have been really good at keeping the group together,” he said. “We’ve got a couple of really big games coming up against Ulster and Leinster, plus the Ospreys have still got to come here which will be a great opportunity to claw back some of those points, so we’re very confident as a group of achieving qualification for the European Champions Cup next season’.”