Ritchie reckons the Cup is still very much up for grabs
Jamie Ritchie is confident his Edinburgh side have what it takes to claw back their 12-point deficit when they meet Glasgow in the second leg of the 1872 Cup on Saturday.
But he knows that, if they are to get the big win needed at Murrayfield to win the trophy on aggregate, they will have to be far more clinical in attack and composed in defence.
The Warriors won Friday’s first leg at Scotstoun 22-10 after ending up the stronger team.
However, they were under heavy pressure for much of the first half, and only made sure of the win late in the second 40, scoring two tries when Edinburgh captain Grant Gilchrist was in the sin bin for persistent offending.
Heavy rain and a tricky wind hampered both teams’ attempts to play attacking rugby, and Ritchie hopes that better conditions will enable his team to bring key players such as Darcy Graham and Duhan van der Merwe into the game more.
“Derby games are often closely fought, and the weather turned on us in the second half at Scotstoun,” the Scotland skipper said.
“That made it a bit harder to score tries, but credit to Glasgow for managing to get themselves over the line a couple of times. I’m backing us to chase that down and we’ll do our best to turn it around.
“I don’t think too much will change for us in terms of the strategy we take into the game. Hopefully the weather is a wee bit better.
“The real focus will be on taking the opportunities we create and making sure we take it to them at home.
“A drier ball would help. Keeping hold of it as well, when we have the ball and are attacking. Making sure we are accurate in how we execute – that would be another thing.
“It’s tough when you’re defending with 14 men. It was definitely a frustrating one for us. We left a lot out there, a lot of it through our own errors.
“Credit to Glasgow for keeping us out, but our discipline let us down at times, and we coughed up the ball two or three times in their 22.
“There were a few positives in there – but a lot for us to work on before next week.”
A capacity Scotstoun crowd of 7,172 saw the Warriors get the win they needed to go back to the top of the URC, and the home support were as raucous as ever as their team closed out the victory. But an attendance of more than four times that is expected on Saturday, with a new record for the fixture of around 30,000 likely to be set.
“Scotstoun is a tough place to come and play, even without the weather,” Ritchie added.
“The fans at Glasgow are always really loud in their support.
“It will be awesome if there is a record crowd at Murrayfield. It feels like Scottish rugby is in quite a good place, and hopefully that shows in a record attendance for the game.”
Before then, Ritchie and his team-mates have the chance for a rare break in a hectic season.
“We’re off through Boxing Day then back in on the 27th,” he said.
“Guys have a little bit of time off to get away from rugby and spend sometime with their families, which we’ve not had in a long time. It will be really nice.”