EDINBURGH head coach Mike Blair is hopeful that star winger Darcy Graham will return from injury to play in Saturday’s crucial inter-city derby match against Glasgow Warriors on the international pitch at Murrayfield.
The 1872 Cup is up for grabs, with the capital side looking to turn around a 13-point deficit from the first leg of the double-header at Scotstoun in March, but more significant is the league points available from this final game of the regular URC season, which will determine which of Scotland's two pro teams will qualify for next season’s European Champions Cup (the other will end up in the second-tier Challenge Cup).
Saturday’s action will also determine who the two teams will face in the end of season play-offs, with away trips to Leinster, Munster, Cell C Sharks, DHL Stormers, Ulster and Vodacom Bulls all potentially on the cards, depending on match results at Murrayfield and elsewhere.
Graham has been out of action since picking up a leg injury during training on the week leading up to Edinburgh's Challenge Cup victory over Bath in mid-April.
“He has been moving pretty well and he has been out training today so we will see how he comes through, but he is looking good at the moment," said Blair. "It was his upper quad [quadricep]. He should be available for selection.
“It was an injury he had had before so we were a little bit more cautious with it. He has been able to get through training, although today was not too intense, so fingers crossed.”
Blair confirmed that centre James Lang, No 8 Ben Muncaster and second-row Marhsall Sykes are also expected to come back into the selection mix this weekend after recovering from injury. “We are not too sure about Glenn Young,” he added.
There is a chance Dave Cherry could return fairly soon from the arm injury he sustained against Ulster at the end of April, but Stuart McInally is likely to be longer-term after suffering a calf injury in the same match.
“We are biding our time with them,” said the coach. “Initially, the diagnoses were better than we first thought so there have been some positive noises, but we have to just wait and see. We initially thought that was them for the season, but they might be back.”
Meanwhile, Blair said he could understand fan frustration at last week’s news that Argentinean winger Ramiro Moyano, who has scored nine tries in 13 appearances for the club since his arrival last summer, will move on after just one season.
“He signed a one-year contract with us, and we had to make a decision fairly early on in the season about him because of the balance and make-up of the squad we’ve got,” explained Blair. “So, we probably made that decision, unfortunately for him, a little bit early because he’s been extremely impressive on and off the pitch.
“He’s got a great relationship with all the players, who love the way he just gets on with things. In his last game, he’d hurt his bicep and tried tackling with one shoulder because that’s the kind of guy he is – he was on the pitch and wanted to the best for his team-mates.”
That injury means Moyano has almost certainly now played his last game for the club.
Blair also spoke about the decision to release two recent academy graduates in loose-head prop Sam Grahamslaw and stand-off Nathan Chamberlain.
“This isn’t a decision you take lightly, it is a horrible thing to do, but I looked at things from Scottish Rugby’s point of view, I looked at it from the individual’s point of view and I looked at it from Edinburgh Rugby’s point of view, and in all three cases my feeling was that it was best to try and get them some rugby elsewhere,” he said.
“Sam has been in the environment for a couple of seasons and played three or four games, so that’s not good for his development and it’s not good for Scottish Rugby that he’s not playing regularly and improving though getting experience
“We tried to get Nathan some rugby through Super6, to get him some time in the saddle.
“These are young players and if we want to see the best of them coming through, then my thoughts are that rather than sitting here as third or fourth choice, that we’d give them the opportunity to go and get some game-time elsewhere, and hopefully in two years time they come back and stick their fingers up and say to us: ‘Put an extra zero on that offer you were going to show me last year because this is how good I am now’.
“It is a really difficult one, especially when you bring in someone like Jamie Jack [a 25-year-old loose-head prop signed from English Championship side Ampthill last week] who is not Scottish qualified, but we see a bit of a rough diamond in Jamie and it allows Sam to get some rugby elsewhere to develop, and I believe that’s best Scottish Rugby at the moment.”
