A year to the day after Edinburgh achieved arguably their finest result so far under Mike Blair’s watch, they will return to the StoneX Stadium on Sunday looking for a similar score-line to that 21-18 win over Saracens on the opening weekend of last season’s European Challenge Cup.
But this time the two teams are looking to lay down markers at the start of their respective Champions Cup campaigns – European rugby’s flagship competition – and the visiting head coach has promised that his team have wasted little time reflecting on past glories during this week’s preparation for the match.
“I don’t believe Saracens will have had the same motivation for that game as they do for this one,” said Blair. “They’re back in the Champions Cup [after being relegated from the top-flight of English rugby for breaching salary cap rules in 2020], they have a really good record in this competition, and they’ll be setting their stall out to win the thing again [after previously lifting the trophy three times in four years between 2016 and 2019].
