McINALLY IS DESPERATE TO UPSTAGE WARRIORS
SCARLETS 15
EDINBURGH 26
STUART McINALLY has urged his Edinburgh team-mates to reclaim the title of Scotland’s leading side from Glasgow Warriors. The capital club have had to watch their fierce rivals make waves in the Guinness Pro12 with three successive top-four finishes. Gregor Townsend’s side sit at the summit of the league after they fought hard for a 34-34 draw against Leinster in Dublin last Friday night. But McInally reckons Glasgow’s reign as the country’s top dogs will be short-lived if Edinburgh keep showing the kind of form which saw them win at Scarlets on Saturday to put themselves within touching distance of a European Champions Cup place. Determined to build on a mini-revival for Alan Solomons’ men after the win in Wales, hooker McInally said: ‘It’s a shame we haven’t played in the top-tier competition this season but, realistically, that’s where Edinburgh have been for the last few years. ‘The onus is on this group of players to take the club back to being a top-tier side. ‘We want to be pushing Glasgow, getting ahead of them, winning the league and trophies.’ Edinburgh scrum-half Sam Hidalgo-Clyne orchestrated a first domestic home defeat for the Scarlets in 15 months. After Steven Shingler kicked an early penalty, visiting centre Phil Burleigh grabbed a try, which Hidalgo-Clyne converted. But Shingler had the Scarlets back ahead with four penalties. Hidalgo-Clyne succeeded with another penalty before David Denton dived over, Hidalgo-Clyne converting, to give the Scots a 17-15 lead at halftime. When Gareth Davies was sent off for a head-butt on Andries Strauss, the game was as good as won.
Man-of-the-match Hidalgo-Clyne put over three penalties to maintain his 100-percent kicking record and put the Scots out of sight and back in the Champions Cup race. Edinburgh’s season has taken a massive upturn since their first trip to Wales in this campaign, when they were thumped 62-13 by Ospreys. Six months later, they are in the hunt for a place at Europe’s top table. They are seventh in the league and need to finish in the top six. But they could earn a Challenge Cup spot if they can secure a quarter-final victory away to London Irish this weekend. McInally is determined to claim the secondtier crown and take the capital club back to where they feel they belong. He added: ‘We want to win the Challenge Cup. ‘We will then have a massive push for sixth place in the league. That has been our goal this season. ‘We are ambitious about where we want to be as a club — and we want to be a top-six team.’ The hooker played five times for Edinburgh when they reached the Heineken Cup semi-final in 2012 and has high hopes the club can reach that level again. The 24-year-old’s ambitions do not stop at club level. He was called into the Scotland squad for this season’s Six Nations and has his sights set on a World Cup squad place. He admitted: ‘I want to play for Scotland in the World Cup. I need to keep improving and, hopefully, things will go my way.’