Steve Scott, Edinburgh's caretaker coach, dropped a clear hint yesterday that he expects to be involved on a more permanent basis next season as news that Ally Dickinson, the Scotland prop, would be joining the team next season prompted him to say he was "looking forward to working with him again".
Scott, the former Sale Sharks forwards coach, will take charge of Edinburgh for the final time in his five-match interim stint in charge when they take on Newport-Gwent Dragons tonight. The outcome will decide whether he and Duncan Hodge have a winning record over that period and the coach, who has a year left on his Scottish Rugby Union contract, said that they have not been told whether they have done enough to keep their positions.
Of Dickinson, he said: "Alasdair is a quality, international rugby player in a key position. He's someone I've worked with for a long time, [having taken] him from Gloucester to Sale, and I am looking forward to working with him again. He does everything by the book to get the best out of himself and what he can contribute to the team, he'll be a great addition next season."
The announcement of the 29-year-old's return to the club coincided with selection in an Edinburgh squad for a final time for his old rival Allan "Chunk" Jacobsen. Dickinson made his Scotland debut at the 2007 World Cup, the year he left Edinburgh for Gloucester, in the defeat by the All Blacks. He won the last of his 24 caps at the 2011 tournament and, while his deal is only for one year, he could join the rare group of Scots to have played in three World Cups in 2015.
The match schedule for that competition was released yesterday and revealed that Scotland's key pool matches, against South Africa and Samoa will be played on successive weekends on October 3 and 10, at Newcastle's St James' Park.
Their opening match against the leading Asian qualifier, probably Japan, will be at Gloucester's Kingsholm on September 23 and they will have just a four-day turnaround before meeting the second Americas qualifier –probably USA or Canada – at Leeds United's Elland Road.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article