Edinburgh Rugby reaction: ‘We have to take that on the chin as a failure’

Grant Gilchrist, the Edinburgh captain, said the squad needed to take “failure on the chin” and improve for next season after a heavy defeat by Benetton cost them a place in the United Rugby Championship play-offs.

The capital side went down 31-6 in Italy in what was a winner-takes-all match against the hosts on the final weekend of the regular league season. Edinburgh finished 10th in the URC standings, two places adrift of the play-off places. It’s the second year in a row that they haven’t made it to the knockout stage.

They also missed out on qualifying for next season’s elite Investec Champions Cup competition and will play in the second-tier Challenge Cup instead.

“We set goals at the start of the season and we set a goal to be in the top eight and we’re not there,” said Gilchrist. “We have to take that on the chin as a failure.

“There have definitely been good foundations put in place. We’ve shown over the course of this year that we’re more than capable of being a top eight team, but we weren’t able to do it consistently. I think it’s a step forward but at the end of the day we said we were going to make the top eight and we didn’t achieve that, so in my eyes it’s a failure and we have to address it.”

It was Edinburgh’s first season with Sean Everitt at the helm. The South African, who had a long association with the Durban-based Sharks and also worked with the Bulls prior to arriving in Scotland, was appointed ‘senior coach’ last summer on a one-year deal. He was promoted to ‘head coach’ in January when he signed a two-year contract extension after a bright first half of the season.

Edinburgh were fifth at that point and spent most of the campaign in the top eight but dropped from seventh to 10th as a result of the decisive defeat in Treviso. In doing so, they became the first team in the URC’s three seasons to win 11 matches and fail to make the top eight. They won more games than the ninth-placed Lions and the eighth-placed Ospreys and the same number as Ulster and Benetton who finished sixth and seventh, respectively.

Benetton's Ignacio Mendy scores his side's opening try in the 31-6 victory over Edinburgh in the BKT United Rugby Championship at Stadio Monigo, in Treviso, Italy. (Photo by Alfo Guarise/INPHO/Shutterstock)

“You can see over the course of the season the improvements we’ve made, the number of games we’ve won,” added Gilchrist. “We’ve actually been frustrated that we could’ve been a lot better in a lot of those games. I think there is enough in there to show that if this is our baseline and we add on a pre-season where we work really hard at our game, we get a few guys fit and ready to go, we can take that step next season. But we need to be better.”

Edinburgh have signed Magnus Bradbury, Ross Thompson and Mosese Tuipulotu for next season but are also losing two of their most important players in WP Nel and Bill Mata. Nel, 38, will now retire from the game after more than 200 appearances for Edinburgh and 61 caps for Scotland. Mata is joining Bristol Bears after eight seasons in the capital. An emotional Gilchrist, who shares the club captaincy with scrum-half Ben Vellacott, was particularly disappointed at the way it ended for the two club stalwarts.

“It’s hard speaking about it,” said the lock. “I’m devastated that this is their last experience in an Edinburgh jersey, they deserved much better. All I can say is thanks for what they’ve given the club, they are both absolute legends who will be spoken about forever when someone speaks about Edinburgh Rugby. It’s really tough that this is their last game. They deserve so much better than this.”

Edinburgh, who have not won in Treviso since 2017, led briefly 6-5 in the first half thanks to two Ben Healy penalties but were distinctly second best. It was an error-strewn performance and Benetton capitalised through tries from Ignacio Mendy, Onisi Ratave, Tomas Albornoz and Alessandro Izekor, who recovered from a first-minute yellow card to score two.

Edinburgh’s defeat means Glasgow Warriors will be the sole Scottish representatives in the URC play-offs and will play the Stormers at Scotstoun on Saturday night. Benetton will travel to South Africa to take on the second-placed Bulls at Loftus Versfeld. Munster, last year’s winners, will host Ospreys in the quarter-finals while Leinster will take on Ulster in an all-Irish clash at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. The winners of the Glasgow-Stormers tie will meet Munster or Ospreys in the semi-finals.