Sharks v Edinburgh 13/4/24

We are going to need a bigger performance.

A second intercontinental trip for Edinburgh in less than a fortnight. Is that glamorous or what?

I suppose there may be some glamour for those in business class but is it really all that special if you get off the plane without a hangover? For those that maybe don’t qualify on a height basis, like Matt Currie, then the glamour be might be absent entirely, as he explained to Jamie Lyall on Rugby Pass.

“Some of the boys will be up in business, some are in economy - l’m in economy.”

You’d like to think that the players will be doing their best to put aside the the travel inconvenience aspect and are just thinking about the 80 minutes on the field. Ultimately a win and a semi final place will make that return trip a different animal and all the hassle of passport control etc will fade into the background.

I had seen it suggested that it wouldn’t have been the worst thing to lose to Bayonne. The Challenge Cup is the diddy cup. The players could do with a rest before an important match the folllowing week against Scarlets. The league is more important.

I understand that viewpoint but I don’t subscribe to it.

Edinburgh are not in a place where they can afford to be picky about where they find glory. Perhaps though we we should be picky about promoting a world club league until we have won any of the trophies that are available to us just now.

I know if I was offered a semi final in the Challenge Cup over an 8th place in the URC and a trip to the RDS to play Leinster i’d take it.

Of course it doesn’t work that way but what does sometime work is building up confidence with wins and good performances.

The good news is that we should be travelling with some of that confidence restored by a 5 try victory over Bayonne. It wasn’t perfect by any means but after our recent reversals it was a welcome tonic.

Bayonne’s offloading game was a stiff test early doors and Edinburgh did a good job of keeping the game tight in those exchanges. In the second half we showed a ruthlessness hitherto absent with two tries either side of the yellow card that effectively put an end to the French sides challenge.

Incidentally it didn’t have any affect on the Bayonne fans who despite following a team that haven’t won away since De Gaulle resigned were noisy throughout and even treated us to a conga towards the end of the match.

A day after our win against Bayonne, Sharks dispatched Zebre. That’s the result of a rugby match by the way not one of those hypothetical type questions like who’d win a fight between a Polar bear and an Orca.

Leading Edinburgh out at Kings Park will be Grant Gilchrist as he joins a very select group of Edinburgh legends who have hit the 200 cap mark. He made his debut for Edinburgh way back in 2011 in Cardiff and has been a vital cog in the Edinburgh machine ever since. Second rows by the bucketload have come and gone - Sean Cox, Rob Mcalpine, Izak van der Westhuizen, Fraser McKenzie, Anton Bresler, Ollie Atkins, Ben Toolis, Alex Toolis, Lewis Carmichael, Callum Hunter-Hill, Murray Douglas, Andrew Davidson, Pierce Phillips to name just a small(ish) selection. Gilco meanwhile has been, injury and Scotland duty aside, almost ever present. Just do the maths. 13 seasons and 200 appearances is more than 15 appearances per season on average.

Second row for the most part is unseen and unheralded work. It’s not called the engine room for nothing. The hard yards and the hard tackles. Just to look at our last game, Gilco had 7 carries for 7 yards. For the season as a whole only Luke Crosbie, Hamish Watson and Bill Mata have made more tackles. He is a machine built for consistency, reliability and work rate. Maybe more like a Land Rover Defender than a Maserati Levante. A work horse as opposed to a show pony.

I’ve said previously that WP will be hard to replace. Gilco is no different. Maybe even harder. He’s always been a leader whether it came with a title or not.

As for the rest of the selections for both Edinburgh and Sharks let’s keep it simple.

For Edinburgh Schoeman is back from concussion and his back up Boan Venter is also well, back, from his injury to take a place on the bench. Those are the only changes to the side that defeated Bayonne.

Sharks are also fielding an almost unchanged side from the one that saw off Zebre with only the return of Eben Etzebeth from a rib injury changing the starting XV. It’s also very close to the team that Edinburgh faced a fortnight ago which is strengthened by the presence of Vincent Koch at tighthead.

We are going to have to be better than we were last time against Sharks but consider this - we really didn’t get going in that game and spent most of it without the ball and in our own half yet lost by only 10 points. Whatever you call it, lessons or learnings, will have been taken and the gunners will fire some shots this time. A cannonade of them hopefully.

This a chance for us to do something we’ve only managed as a club once before and win two knockout matches in European competition. Last time those two wins took us to our only final. There’s a further step this time but we’ll worry about that on Saturday evening.

Mind you need to keep the weekend of 3-5 May free though. Just in case.