Cockerill: We’re no party-poopers. We’ve earned the right to be here...
EDINBURGH are capable of beating Ulster, there is no doubt about that. The question in this afternoon’s PRO14 semi-final is whether they will have the self-belief and self-control required to do so – not just in the early exchanges when the excitement and adrenalin are high, but right to the end of a match which could well be decided on no more than a couple of key moments.
Assess the line-ups one by one and you could not see past the home side at BT Murrayfield. The pack, in particular, is formidable, not just from Rory Sutherland at loosehead to Bill Mata at
No.8, but also on the bench, where Pierre Schoeman and Jamie Ritchie await. The back divisions look more equally matched, with the duel between full-backs
Jacob Stockdale and Blair Kinghorn appearing especially fascinating, but the power out wide of Duhan van der Merwe is something that Ulster cannot match on paper.
Form, too, gives Edinburgh the edge. Ulster lost to Leinster and Connacht in their last two league games, albeit they had virtually qualified for the last four already, while Richard Cockerill’s team found a way to beat Glasgow in the match that mattered before a shadow side lost the dead rubber last week.
And yet, whatever the Belfast-based team may lack in individual star quality or in momentum they more than make up for in hard-edged, collective competitiveness – a quality they tend to produce when it matters most. They have won fewer major honours than Leinster or Munster, yet still have a tradition of success that stretches all the way back to the early years of professionalism and their Champions Cup triumph of 1999. Never mind that the current squad were just infants then: they have grown up in an environment in which expectations of success are high.
By contrast, until Cockerill arrived in 2017, there was little expectation on Edinburgh to do anything, with the inevitable result that they underachieved. But they have matured considerably in the three years since the Englishman became head coach and, after losing quarter-finals in both the league and Champions
Cup over the past two seasons, Cockerill is confident that his team are capable of prevailing today and going through to next weekend’s final.
“We know that it’s the first time for us to be in this situation, but we’re ready to enjoy the game,” he said. “We know that we’re good enough to live in this company, and I’ve no doubt that if we play our best game we’ll give ourselves a great opportunity to win. We’re looking forward to testing ourselves.
“We don’t feel like partypoopers any more. We know that we’re good enough and we’ve earned the right to be here. We’ve been in these situations before in the last two or three years and now
but Cockerill, who as Leicester coach both signed and then later discarded Frank Murphy as a player, has no such qualms. “Frank has transitioned to refereeing very well, he’s progressed over the last 24 months into a very good referee.
“Greg Garner [the PRO14’s referee manager] asked me if I had an issue with an Irishman refereeing the game, and I just said ‘Is he the best referee?’ Look, if he’s the best referee, he’s the best referee. He’s not going to have any bias to either side, regardless of the relationships or the nationalities. He’s going to referee exactly what’s in front of
him. I trust Frank to do that.”
The absence of fans from BT Murrayfield might be regarded as a factor in Ulster’s favour, but they have proven themselves perfectly able to beat Edinburgh at the national stadium as well as at their own ground. The challenge for Cockerill’s squad is to focus instead on producing a performance that does themselves justice.
“We’ve got a good squad, they’ve got a good squad,” the coach concluded. “They’ve got all the history of being in these types of games, but we should have the energy and desire to want to prove that we can take the next step.”