‘Can’t let 40 minutes v Lions put us into total doom’ - Sean Everitt on how Edinburgh can bounce back

The capital side have lost their opening three fixtures in the United Rugby Championship and sit second bottom of the table. While they were competitive in the first two, against Leinster at home and the Bulls in Pretoria, they found themselves overrun by the Lions, conceding seven first-half tries in Johannesburg.

Having been 48-0 down at the interval - a league record - Edinburgh scored three second-half tries and eventually lost 55-21. They face South African opposition again this Saturday when the Stormers come to Hive Stadium and they are home again, to Cardiff, the following week.

The URC dealt Edinburgh a bad hand when it came to their start to the season but Everitt won’t dwell on it and is looking forward to playing in front of his home fans again.

“We can’t use the fixture list as an excuse, because we could get that [again] in the next two years,” he said. “We always knew it was going to be a tricky start, travelling early [to South Africa], but we saw that as an opportunity to grow as a group.

“We can’t let 40 minutes of rugby against the Lions put us into total doom. Because we’ve identified what we need to fix and it’s my job as a coach to fix it. I said earlier to the coaches that I’m an educator and my job is to help people get through and get better, and I need to fix the problem with the group of players that we have with us. And they certainly are accountable.”

Everitt will make changes for this weekend but there will be no scapegoats.

“It’s easy to blame everyone when you come off a loss like that, especially when you’ve been embarrassed in 40 minutes, conceding a record score in the URC. We’ve got two days to prepare for this game on the weekend, we’ll make the changes that we feel are necessary to make our performance better.”

Some of the changes are enforced. Ewan Ashman failed a head injury assessment and won’t be involved this week. With Dave Cherry nursing an ankle injury from the Bulls game, Edinburgh’s options at hooker are limited and Everitt said Paddy Harrison would start against the Stormers. Harrison, who made made his Scotland debut on the summer tour, replaced Ashman in Johannesburg and scored a try. Harry Paterson, the full-back/wing who cut his foot on a sauna door, is close to a return but Saturday’s match may come to soon.

“Harry Paterson trained this afternoon and he’s joining team training and we’ll look at his fitness,” said Everitt. “He hasn’t had a pre-season like all the other players, we also don’t want to risk him. We need to rest Darcy Graham in the upcoming weeks, so it’s important for us to get Harry back on the field, fit and ready to go.

Duhan van der Merwe had to pull out of the Lions match before kick off because of a tight calf but is available again, as is centre Matt Currie who has recovered from a hamstring strain.