Blair flair puts rival Wilson in the shade
For a rookie head coach, Mike Blair has had a decent season at Edinburgh — certainly a better one than his more experienced counterpart Danny Wilson at Glasgow Warriors.
When the pressure was on and a single place in next year’s Heineken Cup was up for grabs, it was his team that kept their discipline, held their nerve and ran out easy winners on Saturday night.
There isn’t much of a gap between the quality of players in both teams but Blair (below) is getting a lot more out of his than Wilson is at present.
He has given them extra confidence to take risks, which was knocked out of them by previous head coach richard Cockerill who always made sure they stuck rigidly to his tactical plans. It was dull to watch and dull to play in.
Having the freedom to express themselves has brought out the best in players such as centre Mark Bennett, who is in the form of his life. He was magnificent against Glasgow.
Even the ambitious ‘Blair Switch Project’ that led to Blair Kinghorn moving from his usual position of full-back to fly-half at the start of the season has paid off. At ten, he is starting to show he has the ability to run a game, which he did against Glasgow at the weekend.
Warriors have top players, such as British and Irish Lions Zander Fagerson and Ali Price, as well as experienced stars such as richie Gray, George Turner, ryan Wilson and rob Harley but they were posted missing against Edinburgh.
Harley cost his team through his indiscipline by picking up an unnecessary yellow for slapping the ball out of the hands of Edinburgh scrum-half Henry Pyrgos in front of the referee.
Collectively, Glasgow made more errors than Edinburgh, hardly threatened them in attack and were well beaten. The only redeeming feature of their performance was the solitary try scored by ollie Smith from a superb cross kick from replacement Domingo Miotti. The loss means Glasgow drop into the Challenge Cup and, sadly, the second-tier European competition is their level. They are a long way away from deserving a place at the top table of European rugby in the Champions Cup and they need new signings to improve next season. Scotland international Huw Jones, who can now play full-back or centre, is a very good start but they need more. Glasgow fans disgruntled over Wilson look like they are fighting a losing battle by calling for his immediate sacking following the manner of the derby day defeat as it is unlikely the SrU will wield the axe as quickly as that.
Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend will want Wilson to stay until at the least the 2023 World Cup as he has a good working relationship with him — and Blair at Edinburgh — and will want that to continue until the tournament in France. Both club coaches are open to suggestions from Townsend when to rest players with international matches in mind or simply to give them a break.
The Scotland head coach has massive influence within the corridors of power at BT Murrayfield, which should help save Wilson in the short term. But the patience of SrU chief executive Mark Dodson will wear thin pretty quickly if results don’t improve at Glasgow and fans continue to drift away from attending matches at Scotstoun early next season.