EDINBURGH have delayed naming their side for Friday night to allow young talents Nick De Luca, Ben Cairns and Ross Rennie to prove their fitness and play their parts in a potential Magners League double over Cardiff.
Rennie was taken off with a knee injury and De Luca left dazed by a head-high tackle in Edinburgh's win over Connacht last week, their first match back in the Magners League after the end of the RBS Six Nations Championship, while Cairns picked up a
knock in training this week.
There are other minor concerns in the squad after what ended up as a convincing victory last week, and young academy prospects Fraser McKenzie and Sean Crombie have been drafted in as cover, but Andy Robinson, the Edinburgh coach, is hopeful of being able to name a strong starting XV tomorrow.
The squad is already missing Allan Jacobsen (torn groin) and flanker Alan MacDonald (fractured cheekbone), who will be lucky to return before the final league match in May, though both are likely to be fit for Scotland's summer tour were they to be selected, while Ross Ford (ankle ligaments) and Roly Reid (hamstring) are expected to return sooner.
Rennie, De Luca and Cairns are three clear candidates for the tour to Argentina, where Scotland play back-to-back Test matches against the Pumas on 7 and 14 June, and Rennie admitted that his international debut, off the bench against Ireland, had merely heightened his desire to be part of Edinburgh's league finale.
"There is a great team atmosphere with Edinburgh this year and more focus on our goals I think," he said, "so I think you'll find that nobody wants to miss a game especially at this stage of the season. I've just got a little cartilage niggle, (the medics] think, and I'm hopeful I'll be training today and testing it fully tomorrow (Wednesday).
"It was good to get my cap – at least as good as it could have been with not getting a great result, though I was a bit frantic in how I played and made a few mistakes; I was just a bit excited really.
"But I never thought I was going to get a cap this season. I have never targeted any particular time to get one, just hoped that I would some time if I played well enough for Edinburgh, but now that I have, the trick is to try and get another one.
"There is really strong competition in the Scotland back row so it's always going to be tricky. It's just about going out and playing well and being part of a winning team, and at Edinburgh we're just trying to take every game on and win each one without thinking too far ahead.
"We have a sniff of doing quite well in the league this year, but we can't hide from the fact we've got a very difficult run-in, so it will be tough and we can't look too far ahead. When you start thinking about titles that's when you can get ahead of yourselves and drop off."
'Focus' is perhaps the most underrated aspect of Andy Robinson's coaching, and may underpin the improvement in the side this season. Much stems from the players he and Rob Moffat have to work with and there is no ambiguity with the likes of Rennie, Cairns, De Luca, Mike Blair and skipper Allister Hogg that winning for Edinburgh comes before anything else in their careers right now.
Robinson is striving to hold outside expectations just below title talk, with Edinburgh needing an 11-point turnaround to overtake current leaders Leinster, but he also knows it is possible, and that is helping to create the kind of end-of-season excitement rare to players in Scotland but with which he was very familiar south of the border.
He said: "People were pleased with the result (against Connacht] and how we played in the second half, but we have five really tough games to play and we've got to be right up there at 95-100 per cent of our performance to win each game; therefore, we've got to improve on what we did last week.
"The Scotland guys came back (from the Six Nations] raring to go and that's been really positive. But if you go to the Guinness Premiership or the French league, this is the important part of the season with the Heineken Cup, EDF Energy Cup and league titles to play for. We have a lot to play for here and it's about getting that into people's minds.
"The end of March and April should be a great month for us, in terms of the dryer grounds and lighter conditions to train in, and we should enjoy this, not switch off for a holiday. It's about building on the foundations we've created and it will be really disappointing if we let that go."
Edinburgh squad (v Cardiff at Murrayfield, Friday, 7.30pm): H Southwell, C MacRae, A Turnbull, J Houston, B Cairns, M Dey, N De Luca, S Webster, D Blair, P Godman, B Meyer, M Blair; G Kerr, A Allori, A Kelly, S Lawrie, C Smith, S Crombie, M Mustchin, B Gissing, F Pringle, C Hamilton, A Hogg (capt), S Cross, R Rennie, D Callam, F McKenzie.
D-DAY FOR ASHTONENGLAND head coach Brian Ashton could discover his fate today when Rob Andrew presents his RBS Six Nations review to the Rugby Football Union's management board, writes Duncan Bech.
Ashton's position has been the subject of intense speculation as critics question his ability to lead England, despite their second-place finish in the championship.
His future has been complicated by reports that Andrew, the RFU's director of elite rugby, has been engaged in talks with Martin Johnson over the creation of an all-powerful managerial role.
Ashton, 61, has stated he would not want a personality such as Johnson involved.
The full article contains 1000 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
