Time to deal in Scottish rugby's third man amid flurry of contract activity

The Edinburgh head coach is in the final year of his contract but there has been little indication of what the future holds for the South African, who overcame a tricky start to last season to build into a solid campaign, guiding the capital club into the United Rugby Championship play-offs and a European semi-final.

Speaking in June, Scottish Rugby chief Alex Williamson said he favoured “continuity” when it came to the three main coaching roles in the men’s game in Scotland.

He followed up on that this week with the announcement of new deals for Gregor Townsend, who will lead the national team into the 2027 Rugby World Cup, and Franco Smith, whose contract with Glasgow Warriors has been extended until summer 2028.

So far, so good, and smart business to keep both men on board. But what of Scottish rugby's third man?

‘Does he want to stay on?’

David Nucifora, Murrayfield’s performance director, was asked if Everitt should be worried about being left out of Wednesday’s barrage of media announcements.

“No, not at all,” said the Australian. “It's unusual you actually get two coaches signed up at the same time, so I think the chance of pulling off the trifecta was pretty low. But no, we've spoken to Sean and we'll continue to speak to Sean over the next few weeks and yeah, we'll work out where that's heading as well.

“We’re not trying to pre-empt anything, so the conversation with Sean will be, ‘does he want to stay on?’ and we'll assess how that's going. But yeah, absolutely, those conversations will be happening.”

The Edinburgh coach is about to begin his third season in charge and there was enough in the team’s performances over the course of the 2024-25 campaign to merit sticking with Everitt despite the horrible start which saw them lose their opening three URC fixtures.

The third of those was a 55-21 defeat by the Lions in South Africa, a match in which the visitors trailed 45-0 at the interval. It was a record first-half score for the league and the sort of performance which had the potential to derail both Everitt and Edinburgh, but they showed resolve to come back and beat the Stormers and Cardiff at home in their next two games.

Results continued to be mixed. There was a gritty win over Glasgow Warriors in front of a record 40,000 crowd at Murrayfield but away days were an issue and Edinburgh had to wait until January for their first win on the road, a 29-25 success at Vannes in the Challenge Cup.

A catalyst for change

The team qualified from the pool stage of the latter competition but there was a major setback in February when they lost 22-17 at home to Zebre, traditionally the URC’s basement dwellers.

It proved to be the catalyst for a change in dynamic at Edinburgh which saw the players take more responsibility for their actions. Magnus Bradbury, back at the club after two years at Bristol, said the players felt culpable for the Zebre result. “Sean said to the media, ‘that's on me’. And we were like, ‘nah, it starts with us’,” said Bradbury, a key figure in Edinburgh’s strong finish to the season.

They won four of their next five games, a run which included a rare away win over Munster in the league and back-to-back victories over the Lions and Bulls in the Challenge Cup, taking them into their first ‘Euro’ semi for a decade. All-conquering Bath proved too strong in the last four but Edinburgh put up a spirited display before going down to Finn Russell and co at the Hive.

It left them with the URC to play for and it was touch and go as to whether Edinburgh would secure the top eight finish required to make the play-offs. Having missed out in the previous two seasons, there was pressure on Everitt to deliver. He’d been at the helm for the second of those campaigns and it had ended with a bitterly disappointing defeat by Benetton in Treviso which condemned Edinburgh to a 10th-place finish.

More durable

They proved far more durable this year, securing bonus-point wins over Connacht away and Ulster at home to finish seventh and set up a quarter-final against the Bulls in Pretoria. Edinburgh stunned their hosts by racing into a 21-8 after 29 minutes but conceded 31 unanswered points thereafter to lose their grip on the tie and the South Africans won 42-33.

Nevertheless, this felt like progress for Edinburgh who have for too long lived in Glasgow’s shadow. There was a harder edge to them in Everitt’s second season and Bradbury’s prompting suggests the more player-led approach is paying off. They now need to build on it and Everitt deserves the chance to oversee that. Continued stability would benefit Edinburgh who have had three head coaches in the last four years as well as a ‘lead rugby consultant’ in Steve Diamond.

Everitt's current deal expires next June and it would make sense for Nucifora to start drafting up a new contract for the South African coach.