Rugby isn’t football, where the half-way point of the season has been reached to massed departures of managers, but there are unmistakable rumblings of discontent at Murrayfield as Edinburgh’s chances of the Magners League play-offs look to have receded into the distance after Saturday’s first-ever home loss to Scarlets.
The Llanelli and West Wales region had never before won at Murrayfield, but they always looked in charge of this game in the snowy evening chill, monopolising the ball and looking far more dangerous with it to boot, and tightening the pressure on Edinburgh’s head coach Rob Moffat.
With one away win against newcomers Aironi in nearly two years, Edinburgh’s exemplary home record has keep the club competitive, but this loss will be followed by three away games while the side is depleted for Scotland call-offs during the forthcoming Six Nations.
The chances of being in the final four, having missed out last year to a calamitous run of defeats at the season’s end, seem less than remote.
A lot of the pressure on Moffat is down to perceptions, especially those in comparison to rivals Glasgow and their head coach Sean Lineen.
Glasgow have not won an away game this season and lie third from bottom of the Magners League and they, like Edinburgh, have made minimal impact upon their Heineken Cup pool.
Yet Lineen’s position seems in no doubt, as his team have the knack of pulling off the odd impressive win (against the Ospreys earlier this season, for example) and the caveat he has been without three key men for the first half of this term-skipper Al Kellock, scrum-half Chris Cusiter and number eight Johnnie Beattie, this latter returning in impressive style against Munster later on Saturday night.CrucialLineen’s position was even strengthened by the narrow loss in Cork as the Warriors played impressively and were undone largely by two contentious refereeing decisions that directly led to two crucial scores for the Irishmen.
Back in the capital, Moffat finds himself under fire due to other perceptions that he is not a big enough name and that he is also the last remaining member of the management team held over from the club’s brief and unsuccessful flirtation with private ownership three seasons ago.
Edinburgh have arguably played the best rugby seen in Scotland from any team but New Zealand this season during the first half against Northampton in the Heineken Cup, and they have been unfortunate not to have won away matches in Cardiff, Castres and Leinster this term but Saturday’s game was their poorest home display yet.
The set-piece has become a huge problem, with little serviceable possession from the lineout all year and now the scrummage despite the presence of an all-international front-row is also coming under pressure.
The best example was the lead-up to the Scarlets’ key score, after Rhys Priestland had kicked the second half restart out on the full.
However, they wrecked the home scrummage on halfway, and turned a perilous defensive position in a juicy attacking one by turning the ball over and attacking through man of the match Jonathan Davies, who set up the try for Morgan Stoddart.
Sorting set-piece has been a recurring problem for Moffat, but his other issue might be self-inflicted-the propensity for chopping and changing his team, especially in the back row and back three.
The ideal is that a squad should be a unit of interchangeable parts and Moffat often mentions the duty of care he owes to his players in the high intensity world of modern professional rugby, but often the change appears to be for change’s sake.
Moffat has been unfortunate in having to treat the highly influential Ross Rennie with kid gloves since the flanker’s return from major knee reconstruction, but there is no need for game changing players like Simon Webster to be cooling their heels on the bench for an hour for the third week, particularly when Scarlets are attacking the wing patrolled by the inexperienced Lee Jones.
The coach can take comfort in his opposite number Nigel Davies, who fought off calls for his head a year ago and has moulded the Scarlets into play-off contenders.
Less comforting is that with a squad of this quality, Edinburgh should be serious play-off contenders as well.