Hodge has designs on Italian job

TRIPS to Italy have rarely been a joy for Edinburgh and facing up to a Zebre side who, only a matter of weeks ago, were dancing around Murrayfield celebrating their first win on Scottish soil does not make this weekend’s trip particularly appetising.

But as part of Duncan Hodge’s campaign to turn around fortunes in the capital city, and persuade the SRU of his credentials for taking over as head coach permanently, it is a great opportunity to strike a rare win in Parma.

Edinburgh have shown clear improvement this season, notably in their attack, but over 21,000 fans left Murrayfield on Boxing Day cursing their side’s inability to finish chances against a tight Glasgow defence.

Now, nothing less than a bonus-point victory is necessary to rekindle hopes of reaching the Guinness Pro12’s top six and qualifying for next season’s European Champions Cup.

Hodge said: ‘You watch the Glasgow game again, and it was no different to what I said afterwards — territory and possession were even. We had three, four line-outs on their line, didn’t score; they had one and scored.

‘We had more line-breaks than them, more offloads than them, didn’t score.

‘We were gutted that we didn’t even get a bonus point out of it, even at the end there, how we didn’t score a try … (when Viliame Mata was held up over the line).

‘So we are hurting from that and there’s certainly no just taking all the positives from it and being over confident.

‘You want to progress quicker and you want to improve every week, so that was a new problem, not being able to convert and score tries.

‘No one likes losing, certainly not at home, and we’ve got a big, tough challenge at the weekend, so all we can do is front up and do our jobs and get on with it. Try and make amends.’

Adding to an injury list including Phil Burleigh, Michael Allen, WP Nel, Rory Sutherland and John Hardie is Hamish Watson this week, due to damaged ribs, so Jamie Ritchie comes back at openside with Magnus Bradbury the other side of No8 Cornell du Preez in the back row.

There are five other changes to the side that lost to Glasgow, with Will Helu, Junior Rasolea and Sean Kennedy restored to the back line, Allan Dell taking over from the injured Alasdair Dickinson — Edinburgh are still awaiting news on the extent of his foot injury — and Fraser McKenzie replacing Grant Gilchrist at lock.

Zebre have not won since that 19-14 Murrayfield victory in October — their sole success of the season to date — but are buoyed by the return from injury of former New Zealand Sevens flyer Kurt Baker for a longawaited home debut.

Crucially, however, they now believe Edinburgh to be beatable and, captained by George Biagi, the former Fettes College pupil of Ayrshire roots, the Italians are intent on finishing 2016 with a rare double.

For Hodge and Edinburgh, it comes down to a no-holds-barred battle for domination and a route back to the upper echelons of the Pro12, and finding out which of his players have the mettle.

‘We’ve got to impose ourselves on the game,’ added Hodge. ‘That’s a massive thing. If we get our job right, that’s the most important thing, and it’s what we’ve focused on this week.

‘I said at the time that Zebre wasn’t a freak game, we knew how they were going to play and we were just a bit off.

‘But we didn’t impose ourselves enough on them that night. That has to change.’