Gilchrist has point to prove against Saracens

GRANT GILCHRIST believes Edinburgh will have a point to prove when they meet Saracens at home on Sunday after coming so close to winning in London last month.

Both teams are already through to the last- 16 of the Champions Cup after wins at the weekend, but Gilchrist’s team need another victory in the final Pool A match to ensure themselves of a home draw in the next round. The Scotland lock is convinced Edinburgh should have won at the Stonex Stadium instead of losing 30- 26, and he believes that maintaining their recent improvement in form will give them a good chance of upsetting the three- time former European champions.

“We owe them one,” Gilchrist said. “We let that game slip away when we were in control. We have to take belief from the troubles that we caused them and the things that we did well in that game. We did so much right to give us that opportunity and we’re going to have to do that again. We can’t take that for granted. But if we put ourselves in that position again with a more mature performance in the back half of the game we can see it through.”

Edinburgh certainly put in a mature performance at Castres on Sunday, when they patiently wore the French club down to end up winning 34- 21 after scoring 20 unanswered secondhalf points. And that match followed a crucial home victory over Zebre in the league when they displayed considerable mental toughness in adversity to recover from falling behind late in the game.

The win against the Italians brought an end to a run of four defeats in the URC, and Gilchrist believes that performance and the one against Castres are proof that his team have learned how to end up on the right side of tight games.

“We’ve been really disappointed and had a lot of tough conversations over the last month,” he added. “Close games have gone against us because we’ve not been good enough.

“It’s good to see last week and this week us showing a lot of character and digging out victories. That was the difference on Sunday. We found ourselves in a tough battle but we looked calm and in control when it mattered.”