Success is key to capital sell-outs
NOTHING succeeds like success and Edinburgh don’t have far to look to find the proof within the proverb.
A sell-out crowd of 7,351 at Scotstoun saw Glasgow Warriors follow up their away win over Connacht with a bonus-point victory over the Ospreys.
On the same weekend, just 3,324 Edinburgh fans turned up at Myreside, which has a capacity of 5,500, to see their team secure a bonus-point win over the Dragons after their opening-day victory away to Cardiff.
The ball is now in the court of capital head coach Richard Cockerill and his team to show, like Glasgow have through the years, that the main way to increase crowds is to keep winning games. There is also pressure on the SRU to make sure facilities at Myreside keep getting better and better.
The difference in levels of support between Edinburgh and Glasgow is sad to see but hasn’t happened overnight. Forcing Edinburgh to play their fixtures in front of a few thousand at the 67,400-capacity Murrayfield may have saved the SRU money but did little to create a club feel or inspire the players.
To be fair, all the stops are now being pulled out by Edinburgh chief executive Jon Petrie to improve things for the longsuffering fans.
He spearheaded the move to Myreside as an experiment last season and it turned out to be a big success. He has ordered facilities to be improved this season so there can be no complaints about the matchday experience from fans.
On the pitch, things are improving too and you would think the appointment of Cockerill, who helped guide Toulon to the Top 14 final last season where they lost to Clermont, would have excited Edinburgh fans. Clearly not enough as such a low attendance against the Dragons in their first home game was a huge disappointment and slightly baffling considering the calibre of their new coach.
Those who stayed away missed a four-try, attack-minded display by Edinburgh, who deserve more fans to watch them in action against Treviso at Myreside tomorrow evening.
Glasgow don’t have problems filling Scotstoun but that is off the back of four successful seasons either in the league — they won the title in 2015 — and making the later stages of European competition under Gregor Townsend.
With Dave Rennie in charge, they have won their first two Guinness Pro14 matches and continue to have incredible support, with 12 out of 14 league fixtures at Scotstoun last season selling out.
A senior SRU figure told this correspondent that Edinburgh were ‘five or six years’ behind Glasgow in terms of securing sellout crowds of more than 7,000 at their home league matches. Hopefully things are going to improve, with a successful Edinburgh side under Cockerill this season the first step towards increased crowds at Myreside.