Edinburgh’s season can’t be judged a success until they hit a goal that most would have thought a pipedream six months ago, says head coach Richard Cockerill.
With last week’s win at Connacht stretching their record to six wins in a row in what many saw as the toughest part of the season schedule, the transformed capital club host Cardiff in the European Challenge Cup quarter-final on Saturday, the start of a run of four crucial home fixtures.
Home PRO14 games against Ulster, Scarlets and Glasgow follow with a win against the Irishmen first up all they need to reach the knockout stages of the league as well as in Europe.
But Cockerill point-blank refuses to reflect on how much the club has been changed under his tenure and instead focus on new goals.
“If we’d sat here six months ago and said `We’re going to be a playoff team’ you’d all have said, `what with Ulster and Scarlets and Leinster in your group? You’re dreaming’ and to be fair you’d be dead right because I’d be thinking exactly the same,” he said.
“It’s amazing that a bit of hard work and a bit of belief, we might surprise ourselves. We know we’re not really a good enough side to be in semis and finals but we’ll see, we’ll certainly give it a good crack.
“Whoever beats us going forward I just want them to be very good at what they do to beat us.”
Sitting back and admiring how far the club have come is simply not on the agenda.
“The key part is that we don’t see the season to this point as a success,” he said. “The success is getting in the play-offs, and getting into the semi-final in Europe.
“We know if we beat Ulster here we’ll be in a quarter-final, but we’ve still got Scarlets to play after that. They’re an outstanding team, but there’s still a chance we might push past third if we get things right against them.
“I’m not thinking too much about that because we can’t get ahead of ourselves, we’re not a good enough team to do that. We need to make sure today’s right, tomorrow’s right. But we’ve put ourselves in position to make the really good teams have a good hard think about us.”
The one aspect Cockerill would like to see reflected in the side’s development is at the BT Murrayfield turnstiles.
“We’re actually learning to win games, winning ugly, winning them at the death and we’ve done that five or six times now so it’s not a fluke, is it?” he said.
“I just hope we get a good support, we’re having a good season and I’d like people to support their city and their team, because the boys are working very hard to make this thing work.
“We’ve got some big games coming up, we’ve had a tough run-in to the end of the season and so far we’ve done very well. The boys will put everything on the field, so I’d like people to support them and we can start to build this club into what it can be.”
Cockerill is being kept in the loop about new stadium plans now the Myreside project has been abandoned, but he feels the potential Edinburgh support should come out wherever they play.
“We’ve been nomadic for a while so we turn up and play, do what we do, that’s a good mentality and it’s served us well,” he added.
“This stadium’s too big for us, but there’s still no reason we can’t get 8, 10, 12,000 to come and watch us, and then wherever we go next let’s hope we can continue doing that.
“We’ve got a team that people can relate to, can support and walk away at the end of games and say, `that’s my team and I’m proud of what they’re trying to do.’
“Maybe in the past we’ve over-promised and under delivered. I’ve certainly under-promised and hopefully we’ll start to deliver in the next few weeks.”
