Hardie will be ‘welcomed back by Edinburgh after ban.

Banned internationalist will be welcomed back to Edinburgh, says Cockerill

John Hardie will be welcomed back to Edinburgh Rugby once his suspension for gross misconduct has been completed, said head coach Richard Cockerill.

The Scotland back rower has been banned for three months for what is understood to be an incident involving the use of cocaine. He was withdrawn from action in October and is next available in mid-January.

Cockerill was consulted throughout the disciplinary process in the internal investigation by Scottish Rugby, and now he is keen for the matter to be closed.

“It’s the end of the matter,” said the head coach, speaking from South Africa where Edinburgh are preparing to play the Southern Kings in the Guinness PRO 14 in Port Elizabeth tonight.

“It’s been dealt with and John will rejoin the squad in January. We’ll get him back to fitness and he’ll come back into the squad as selection dictates.

“He’s made a mistake and he’s been punished, and once he’s available to come back into the squad and train, he will.”

The squad and coaching team wanted to help the 29-year-old “through some difficult times”, added Cockerill.

“I was asked my opinion on what I thought about it, and obviously that was taken into consideration,” he said.

“I think (the investigation) probably came to a very fair and sound conclusion. But I’m most pleased it’s been dealt with and we can get on with playing rugby again, and look to looking after John, getting him back right.

“There’s two parts to this: there’s the rugby part, but also there’s the personal side for John, and helping him through some difficult times.

“Everybody has these things in life sometimes that need to be dealt with. So I’ll just be happy to get him back in and getting on with what we’re here to do.”

Hardie, capped 16 times for Scotland since coming from New Zealand just prior to the Rugby World Cup in 2015, is currently on a one-year contract extension with Edinburgh that expires in May.

Meanwhile Cockerill will field six Scotland squad players who were flown out after the record win against Australia to join up with Edinburgh against the Kings in the Nelson Mandela Stadium tonight.

Ben Toolis, Simon Berghan, Grant Gilchrist, Cornell du Preez and Phil Burleigh all played some part in the win over the Wallabies, while Jamie Ritchie was also with Scotland during the entire Autumn campaign although he did not play.

Five of the six will start with Toolis on the bench, and Cockerill is also able to start Rory Sutherland, one of three loose-head props who have been on the injured list this season, for the first time.

“I’ve been having conversations with Gregor (Townsend), and obviously we’ve reached a very important part of our season, and we have the luxury of being able to probably rest some guys in the upcoming European weeks,” said Cockerill.

“Gregor was happy for us to bring guys out to play, because every league point’s very important, and knowing there was an opportunity to look after the squad in those two European games before we go into the back-toback games against Glasgow over Christmas.”

Cockerill thought his depleted team competed well against the Cheetahs last week and knows they’ll have to be on their game to get anything from asyet-winless Kings.

“If you take it in the context of our squad and missing eight or nine first choice players in that forward pack and by and large it was a pretty good effort in Bloemfontein,” he said.

“The Kings are a dangerous team, but we are going to go into the game with a positive mindset and I would expect us to perform and I expect us to win the game.

“We won’t be taking them lightly, as you saw in their last two games against Ulster and Scarlets, they pushed them all the way. We have got to get it right.”

Edinburgh (vs Southern Kings, Nelson Mandela Stadium, Port Elizabeth, tonight 5.15pm GMT) :B Kinghorn; D Fife, J Johnstone, P Burleigh, D van der Merwe; J van der Walt, N Fowles; R Sutherland, N Cochrane, S Berghan; F McKenzie (capt), G Gilchrist; V Mata, J Ritchie, C du Preez. Replacements: C Fenton, M Rizzo, M McCallum, B Toolis, L Crosbie, S Hidalgo-Clyne, C Dean, G Bryce.

Everyone has these things in life sometimes that need to be dealt with. RICHARD COCKERILL