COCKERILL READY TO SHOOT AT THE STARS
A-listers no match for teamwork
THE opposition are ‘A-listers’, for sure. Yet, far from rolling out the red carpet, Richard Cockerill believes his Edinburgh side will make this a night to forget for star-studded Montpellier. And one to remember for Scottish rugby.
Victory over the French giants would not only take Edinburgh through to the knock-out stages of the Heineken Champions Cup, it would also have the knock-on effect of sending Glasgow Warriors into the last eight as well. With Scotland never before having both professional clubs in the quarterfinals of the European Cup in the same season, history beckons tonight at BT Murrayfield. Not that Cockerill is feeling its weight on his broad shoulders.
‘All the pressure is on Montpellier, not us,’ said the Englishman. ‘They are the A-listers — and they need to beat us to qualify.
‘They have won just one of their last 13 away European matches and that was at Glasgow but will have high expectations to get out of this group at our expense. They are the side that has spent a lot of money. On the face of it, they should be better than us but, as ever, the sum of our parts has always got to be stronger than the individuals and we have got to make that really count. I’m going to back us.’
Cockerill has unsurprisingly stuck by the players who beat Toulon away from home last weekend by naming the same 23-man squad.
Former Scotland head coach Vern Cotter, meanwhile, can rely on four members of South Africa’s 2007 World Cup-winning squad in his Montpellier starting line-up.
Full-back Francois Steyn was one of the Springboks heroes that day, putting over a penalty in the 16-5 win over England in Paris. Scrum-half Ruan Piennar, hooker Bismarck du Plessis and his brother Jannie, who plays prop, were all also in the matchday squad.
Add in former French captain Louis Picamoles in the back row, as well as Fijian winger Timoci Nagusa, and you have a Montpellier side full of individual talent from all over the world.
‘That’s a very strong Montpellier team, especially in that backline where nine, ten and 12 are all South African internationals,’ said Cockerill. ‘There’s a Springbok at 15 in Steyn, too, and Johan Goosen at ten is a very dangerous player.
‘Then you have the South African Du Plessis brothers in the front row and Louis Picamoles in the back row who is an unbelievable player. Their individuals might be very strong but we feel that the sum of our parts is just as strong.’
Cockerill has called on Edinburgh fans to turn up in their droves — 9,000 tickets have already been sold — to cheer on their team in a fixture he feels has more buzz around it than any other since he took over more than 18 months ago.
‘We’ve got a team that is now worth supporting,’ he continued. ‘When I arrived, I wasn’t surprised that people didn’t come and watch because we weren’t a very good team. Now we are a good team, we’re doing some good things, and I’d really like as many people as possible to come and support their city team because the lads are doing the job.
‘They are a team to be proud of, a team to watch, a team to be associated with because of what they’re doing.
‘There are more people than normal coming up to me to wish me luck this week. There is a lot of rugby support in the city but they want to support a winning team and we are getting that.
‘The supporters in Edinburgh are just a little bit quieter than others and I’m learning that they are different from Leicester and Toulon or other places.
‘We have to be very good and make sure we get everything right and start to win regularly. If we do that, then supporters will come and watch on a regular basis. A win over Montpellier and getting into the knock-out stages of Europe will help that.’
Cockerill is even hoping the Scottish weather will be on his side and the sub-zero temperatures expected will catch Montpellier cold in every sense of the word.
‘I think the weather’s going to be cold, and the sleet and the rain will be coming down on a dark Edinburgh night, which hopefully they won’t like,’ he said. ‘They’re probably not used to the freezing cold as much as we are.
‘You would expect the motivation to be equal because they have to win the game to qualify. But they live in a nice part of the world where the weather is pretty good most of the time. Most of them are South African anyway and bad weather should help us.’
Edinburgh opened their first Champions Cup campaign for five seasons with a 21-15 defeat away at Montpellier, with the hosts hanging on under heavy secondhalf pressure back in October. Cockerill put that loss down to a lack of belief in their own ability early on which cost them the game.
‘It took us 20 minutes to get into that game in France and we can’t afford to do that again,’ he said. ‘I think we’re a better team than we were when we played them there, we’ve got more confidence and we are developing our game well.
‘I think we have a belief that we
are good enough to be on the same field as these Montpellier players, which we maybe didn’t have in the early stages of the game in France.
‘We will respect them because there are some fantastic players in their side, but we believe we can win.’
Cockerill also paid respect to Cotter, who is returning to Murrayfield for the first time since he was replaced by Gregor Townsend and has Scottish pair Nathan Hines and Richie Gray on his back-room staff.
‘Vern will have them fired up. I know him from when I was at Leicester and he was at Clermont and we played each other a few times,’ he said. ‘He’s a very good coach. Last year, they were the best team in France by far and they just weren’t very good for one game, which unfortunately was the TOP14 final. ‘He did a quality job at Clermont, a very good job here in Scotland and is doing a good job at Montpellier. ‘By their standards, and with the squad they have — and they’ve had some nasty injuries, to be fair — they are probably not doing as well as they would like and will want to come across here and qualify for the knock-out stages of Europe.’