LAUNCH PAD
Edinburgh hope return of Scott and Barclay will ignite their campaign
WITH over 100 Scotland caps between them, the return of John Barclay and Matt Scott isn’t so much a boost to Edinburgh, but an injection of rocket fuel as they enter the season’s final frontier.
Both players have been named in the starting line-up for tonight’s Pro14 match against Leinster at BT Murrayfield, to the delight of head coach Richard Cockerill.
It will mark Barclay’s debut for the club, with the flanker having been out of action for ten months since rupturing his Achilles tendon whilst playing for the Scarlets last May.
Scott had been sidelined with concussion after taking a blow to the head during the Heineken Champions Cup victory over Toulon back in October.
To have both of them making their comeback at such an important juncture of the campaign, then, ensures that everyone at the club heads into tonight’s game with an added spring in their step.
Particularly given the fact that, next weekend, there is a Champions Cup quarter-final against Munster to look forward to.
If Barclay, 32, and Scott, 28, come through this evening’s game unscathed, they will have every chance of playing again the following weekend.
For Cockerill, the double dose of good news is welcome in a season when he has not had his troubles to seek on the injury front.
‘Yeah, I hope things are falling into place for us,’ said the Edinburgh head coach. ‘Fortune has conspired against us a little bit (previously this season).
‘But, hopefully, with a huge game coming up in Europe next weekend and in the conference as well, things will drop into place and a bit of luck will fall our way.
‘There’s no doubt John Barclay’s a good enough player. It’s just whether this late in the season his match fitness is going to be up to it.
‘The best thing for Barcs is just to go as hard and as long as he can. I’m pretty convinced he’s ready to deliver a decent performance.
‘Matt has obviously been a little bit frustrated. We’ve been very cautious in looking after him, for all the right reasons.
‘I’m delighted he’s back in because it gives him an opportunity to get some minutes under his belt and see if he can push for a spot for the business end of the season.
‘So, hopefully, all the stars are aligning and we’ll have a good finish to the season. I’ll 100-percent be picking my best team next week against Munster.’
The inclusion of Barclay and Scott are the headline selections in what is a strong Edinburgh line-up overall. Stuart McInally and Grant Gilchrist are rested following the Six Nations, while Blair Kinghorn is missing due to injury.
Other than that, though, they are close to full strength. Currently sitting in fifth place in Conference B, seven points adrift of the play-off spots, Cockerill simply doesn’t have the luxury of resting too many players.
The opposite is true for Leinster. They sit top of the table and have afforded some time off to some of their key players who have returned from Ireland duty, most notably Johnny Sexton.
‘From a conference point of view, we’ve put ourselves into a hole that we’re going to have to work very hard to get out of,’ continued Cockerill.
‘We need the points. If we lose, it’s going to be very hard for us to qualify for the play-offs and it’s certainly going to be a struggle to get into Europe.
‘We are seven points off third place. We need to start winning games and this is a very important one.
‘Unless other results are very favourable to us we are going to have to win all four games.’
Cockerill has challenged Darcy Graham and the rest of the Scotland contingent to build on their heroics at Twickenham last weekend.
Graham scored two tries as the Scots staged a stunning comeback to draw 38-38 with England and retain the Calcutta Cup.
‘We’ve got to learn to be able to play big games and then back it up the week after, so it will be a learning curve for Darcy and it will be interesting to see how he copes with that,’ said Cockerill.
‘Those guys, when they have their first exposure to Test-match rugby, it’s always difficult to come back to your club and see things the same way.
‘I don’t see that as unique to Darcy. It’s something that all our Test players can do better and we always keep working at it.’