'Great underachievers Edinburgh need to start delivering'
The ridiculousness of Edinburgh's travails in the United Rugby Championship had a spotlight shone on it at Murrayfield on Sunday as Scotland took the Wallabies to the cleaners in a second half of attacking brilliance.
Duhan van der Merwe and Darcy Graham were at the heart of Scotland's acceleration away from the visitors. Grant Gilchrist was a towering presence in the lineout when his early-season performances for his club suggested a loss of his powers.
Jamie Ritchie put in one of his best displays for Scotland, an influential and angry thing, a game heavy with aggression, bite and breakdown menace.
Ritchie has been in and out of the Scotland team all year. Selected at six, then not in the 23, then on the bench, then picked at seven, then back out of the 23 again. He lost the captaincy this year, of course. What began in serious disappointment has ended with something of a rebirth.
Pierre Schoeman also had a good autumn after questions had been asked of the big man's form for Edinburgh.
Schoeman, Van der Merwe and Graham will all be Lions next summer, unless something goes badly awry. In Ritchie, Gilchrist, Ewan Ashman, Marshall Sykes, Luke Crosbie, Ben Muncaster, Magnus Bradbury, Hamish Watson and others they have a support cast up front that's strong and experienced.
And so we ask (again) about Edinburgh's feeble form in the URC. In the history of the competition has any team ever made so little of so much? Funded to the tune of more than £6m a year, they have financial muscle, a decent support crying out for something to get behind and a squad of players that should be in the URC playoffs at an absolute minimum.
And yet they are 10th, having played one game more than Sharks, who sit just above them. Watching Edinburgh trying to overcome their own shortcomings over the last number of seasons has been painful. It's rugby’s equivalent of fingernails across the school blackboard.
There's lots of time for Edinburgh to find themselves. And find themselves they must. They're at home to Benetton this weekend. How about a routine win? How about a professional hit job that suggests they still have a pulse to go along with the star quality?
They'll break for Europe after that, but Europe isn't their priority. The URC is where they must advance and the next time we'll see them after Benetton will be against Glasgow at Hampden on December 22 and again at Murrayfield six days later.
Two wins from the three and you can maybe start thinking about Edinburgh having the gumption to force their way into relevance at the right end of the table. Three from three and the tinsel will be out.
Edinburgh fans will steel themselves for a whole lot less than that. They remain the great underachievers of URC rugby - an expensive conundrum, a team of internationals who can't get it together. Coaches come and go and the story hardly ever changes.
We keep waiting for the plot twist. The senior pros at Edinburgh need to take inspiration from the Warriors to the west and get mean, get uncompromising, get the kind of attitude that propelled Ritchie forward on Sunday. Living in the shadow of Glasgow can't be much fun. This weekend, with the URC back in full flow, they need to start emerging from it once and for all.
