Edinburgh forwards coach Stevie Lawrie is confident that Bill Mata will be keen to end his eight-year stint on a high before his departure in the summer for Bristol Bears.
The first member of the club’s coaching staff to speak since last week’s announcement that Mata is to leave at the end of this season, Lawrie praised the Fijian No 8 for his commitment to the cause since he joined back in 2016. And, pointing out that the 32-year-old had been in fine form in the team’s last outing - the home win over Glasgow in the second leg of the 1872 Cup - he suggested there was no reason to expect that to change over the coming months.
“Bill has been a fine servant for the club,” Lawrie said. “He’s having a really good season and we expect that to continue.
“He’s here until the end of the season, and sometimes when these things are announced it gives you a focus to really finish on a high - which I know Bill will want to do, because he’s been such a good servant to the club.
“[He is] very, very diligent, easy to coach. When you consider English is his second language he’s very switched on. I think you just get something a little bit different with Bill in terms of his ball-carrying.
“I thought he was excellent against Glasgow. He’s a good man and excellent to work with and I can’t speak highly enough of him.”
Edinburgh’s first game back after the New Year break is in the Challenge Cup on Friday, when they are at home to Gloucester. The English club are top of Pool C, three points clear of Edinburgh and three other teams, while Scarlets bring up the rear.
That standing in Europe is in stark contrast to their position in the Premiership, in which they are currently second bottom after losing their last nine matches. Nonetheless, Lawrie does not expect an easy tie at the Hive Stadium, and is convinced that Gloucester constitute a far greater threat than those results might suggest.
“They’ve been right in it. We know how good Clermont are, and that was a fantastic win,” he said of Gloucester’s 28-17 victory over the French side, who had beaten Edinburgh a week earlier in the opening round of pool games. “The games that they’ve lost have been narrow losses.
“We know that with the coaches they’ve got, their pack is something that we’ll have to make sure we contest with, and they’ve got a bit of a threat in their back line as well with guys like Louis Rees-Zammit and Jonny May. There’s a lot of quality there.”
Edinburgh’s 19-14 victory at Murrayfield over the Warriors may not have been enough to give them an aggregate victory in the 1872 Cup, but it did ensure that they ended the first half of the season on a high, with a record of six wins out of nine games in the United Rugby Championship and one from two in the Challenge Cup. They lost their opening European fixture away to Clermont, but then beat Castres at home, and may now only be one win away from qualifying for the last 16.
“Our win against Castres and the other results have blown the group wide open and it’s important we keep the momentum going,” the coach added. “It’s going to be tough against a good Gloucester side, but we’re excited to be at the Hive.”
A break is often the last thing a team wants when they have just won a game and generated some momentum, but Lawrie believes that the down time the players had last week came at exactly the right point of a demanding season - one which, even before you take the URC play-offs into account, goes on up until the beginning of June.
“It was 11 games on the bounce, so it was nice for guys who have never had this week off before,” he added. “Often when you come back after a week off your first session is not the best, but the guys have trained really well. So hopefully they feel refreshed and now it’s important that we see the benefits of that time off.”
