FAST starts are the key to Edinburgh getting their season back on track, says lock Ben Toolis, who knows that time is running out if they are to give themselves a fighting chance of qualifying for next season's European Champions Cup.
With high-profile signings like Mark Bennett arriving next season, it is not just the Edinburgh players who will be hoping they can at least challenge for the top tier in Europe. Everybody involved with the national side knows the higher grade of competition is vital for the international players.
To have any chance of getting there, Edinburgh need to make up ground on Ulster, currently 18 points ahead of them, and Toolis recognises that winning against Leinster in Dublin would be an ideal start.
"We have not had the best time in the Guinness PRO12 – a lot of close losses in a lot of games we should have won," he admitted. "To push ourselves closer to the top six, we need to win these games at the back end of the season.
"If the boys are serious, and I can tell that they are, then I am sure we are going to pull out a few good performances – starting this weekend.
"If we did win at the RDS – I have played there a few times and I know what a tough place it is – it would give us that confidence rolling into the last part of the season. If we can beat Leinster at home, then we can beat anyone. To do that we will need to start well and keep the pressure on."
As so often this season, a slow start was their undoing in Belfast last weekend. They were 24-5 down with the opposition having bagged a scoring bonus point, before they started to string their game together.
"That is the frustrating part, we have shown glimpses of the spectacular rugby we can play but we had let ourselves down in the first half," said Toolis.
"All that special stuff we can do and then we let ourselves down in the first half. We come back in the second half but we don't have that consistency. We have won games, like Ulster [at home] earlier in the season and Harlequins away, when we have played for 80 minutes and got the win. It is just a consistency thing.
"We are on the edge, we are getting closer to being more consistent but these little things are letting us down– stupid turnovers, missed tackles and stuff like that. We are getting there and the boys know it."
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel