The supporter response to Edinburgh’s first home Heineken Cup quarter-final this weekend can open the eyes of the public and players alike, believes coach Tom Smith.
The former Dundee HSFP, Scotland and Lions prop, who now runs the capital club’s forward pack, is impressed with the numbers who have bought advance tickets for Saturday’s Murrayfield clash with four-times champions Toulouse.
“Thirty-one thousand now,” he corrected a questioner who mentioned the 30,000 figure passed on Tuesday, and now within just 6,000 of the record crowd for a quarter-final match in the British Isles.
“I didn’t expect that many, no,” he said.
“Perhaps it’s opened a few people’s eyes and shown what the potential really is here.
“We’re clearly not a second-class sport in Scotland and if we move the pro teams in the right direction there are people out there who are keen and interested and will buy into it.”
Smith has seen it all in the game and whatever Edinburgh’s up-and-down form this year they’ve been outstanding in the European competition but lie second bottom of the RaboDirect PRO12 he knows they are capable of a performance to beat the formidable French team, currently four points clear leading the Top 14.’We don’t want this to be one taste’Smith said: “The stakes have changed now and, while the experience we have counts for something it’s all about performance.
“We’re certainly capable of performing to the right level and the guys are in a good place right now. We’re not ahead of ourselves, this is obviously a big job, but we’re relishing it.
“You look at Toulouse and most seasons they are at the business end of this competition. It’s somewhere we’re enjoying being this year and we want to stay there.
“We don’t want this to be one taste we want a bit more.”
The disappointment of the Six Nations, despite the involvement of as many as nine Edinburgh players during Scotland’s whitewash campaign, is “basically irrelevant to us,” he continued.
Smith said: “The experience of playing Six Nations is good, but that is very different, even to this game where there’s added intensity and media attention like a Six Nations game.
“However success or failure with Scotland doesn’t matter, other than having the players of a quality good enough to play international rugby and getting more to that level.
“We are a separate entity and the players can switch off from Scotland stuff and focus on Edinburgh, and they’ve done that very successfully this last two weeks.”Form ‘not good enough’As for Edinburgh’s fluctuation in form, Smith says it’s “simply not good enough”.
Edinburgh skipper Greig Laidlaw believes the effect of returning to the Heineken Cup can kickstart the club’s momentum in the same way as it did when they started on their European campaign.
“When things don’t go too well, like it did with Scotland, it’s good to get a change,” he said.
“It was that attitude that kickstarted our Heineken campaign back last year.
“We were struggling in the league but the European games came up and it really refreshed us as a team.
“We were able to get the good start against London Irish, we pushed on from that and now we find ourselves in a good position.”
Edinburgh fans have learned not to leave their seats early as the team’s key late scores have been a feature this year and Laidlaw feels that is down to the attitude of the team.
“We have guys who push to the end of the game and I think there’s a feeling that no matter what the situation and if the game is tight, we trust in our techniques and our systems,” he said.