WHILE accepting that the loss of Darcy Graham to a quadricep strain ahead of tonight’s European Challenge Cup round of 16 home match against Bath is undoubtedly a setback for Edinburgh, head coach Mike Blair was quick to highlight that the recent fine form of Ramiro Moyano – the player who has taken over the little winger’s No 14 jersey – has softened the blow.
The Argentinean dotted down twice for the capital outfit during last Friday’s 54-5 demolition of Pau, and he has crossed the line nine times in 11 appearances since joining the club at the start of this season.
“Darcy just picked up an injury in training this week and he’s not going to be ready for this one, sadly,” explained the head coach. “He’s been flying in training and during recent games.
“It is just a little muscle injury, so really disappointing for us, but at the same time it would have been really difficult to leave Ramiro out the team for this one because I thought he was excellent last week and he’s played really well for us all season when he’s had a chance."
A big bonus for Edinburgh is that five Scotland internationalists – outside-centre Mark Bennett, inside-centre James Lang, stand-off Blair Kinghorn, scrum-half Ben Vellacott and flanker Hamish Watson – have all come back into the starting XV after a post-Six Nations rest week, bolstering the spine of the team for what Blair believes will be the biggest challenge Edinburgh have faced since moving into their new DAM Health Stadium home at the start of this season.
The two other changes to the starting XV see youngster Ben Muncaster return to the back-row after missing last week with a minor knee injury, while Lee-Roy Atalifo takes over at tight-head prop for the suspended WP Nel and injured Luan de Bruin.
“We selected Lee-Roy to start a few games at the beginning of the season and we believe he is a really strong scrummager and for a big man he’s got some fast-twitch fibres in there and he can make game-changing moments in defence, so we’re really pleased to bring him in,” said Blair, before revealing that he had thought long and hard about appealing Nel’s suspension before deciding it wasn’t worth risking the sanction being increased.
“It’s a funny process. Deciding how we played that out is probably one of the most stressful things I’ve done. I believe that half the people looking at the incident would say it is fine and there’s no red card, and half the people would say it is a red card offence, so the risk for us between two weeks and three weeks wasn’t worth it.
“We can just about manage for a couple of weeks, even with the injuries we’ve got at tighthead prop, but if he was out for three weeks then I believe we would be really stretched.
“So, it was a really difficult process. It is the first time I have been involved in something like that and I changed my mind time and time again about whether to challenge it or not, whether to take the risk of him getting a longer suspension.
“I think for us, the potential negatives outweighed the potential positives.”
Bath might currently be propping up the English Premiership table, but they are a club with a huge pedigree and a star-studded squad, and they are clearly targeting this match as an opportunity to kick-start their season.
“You look at their team selection, it is an impressive side,” said Blair. “Their back-row in particular [of Sam Underhill, Taulupe Faletau and Josh Bayliss] but they’ve got internationals throughout their team, with speed and power on the wing, so this is going to be a proper test for us.
“I know that some teams won’t go full strength in these games [in Europe’s second tier competition] even though it is into knock-out, but as you can see from these selections, this is a really important match for both sides.”
Blair added the Orlando Bailey, Bath’s 20-year-old stand-off, has been identified as a major threat tonight.
“He seems to have to have the ability to pick out the right runner but he’s also a running threat himself,” said the coach. “He’s someone we’re going to have to keep an eye on and shut down.”
Edinburgh (v Bath at the DAM Health Stadium, 8pm GMT Saturday): H Immelman; R Moyano, M Bennett, J Lang, E Boffelli; B Kinghorn, B Vellacott; P Schoeman, S McInally, L Atalifo, M Sykes, G Gilchrist (captain), B Muncaster, H Watson, M Bradbury. Substitutes: A McBurney, H Courtney, A Williams, G Young, C Boyle, H Pyrgos, J van der Walt, C Hutchison.
Bath: T de Glanville; S Rokoduguni, J Joseph, M Clark, J Cokanasiga; O Bailey, B Spencer; V Morozov, T Dunn, W Stuart, W Spencer, C Ewels (captain), J Bayliss, S Underhill, T Faletau. Substitutes: J du Toit, A Cordwell, D Rae, M Williams, E Richards, J Simpson, D Cipriani, W Butt
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