Can Edinburgh or Glasgow challenge for URC title?

Edinburgh and Glasgow reached the United Rugby Championship play-offs last season and the challenge is to replicate or even better that accomplishment.

Each squad has a more youthful look this time round, with a raft of experienced players from both sides moving on over the summer.

Scottish Rugby’s drive to promote homegrown talent and reduce the reliance on foreign imports has had an impact.

Warriors reached the URC semi-finals last term, where they were well beaten by Leinster in Dublin, while Edinburgh went down to the Bulls in Pretoria in the quarter-finals.

Given they scraped into the play-offs last season by the skin of their teeth and have habitually failed to mount even a semblance of a meaningful title challenge, there will not be many placing handsome wagers on Edinburgh being crowned champions.

And yet there is no shortage of confidence within the camp that this group can do something special.

“We want to win the league,” said prop Paul Hill. “We talked about it, it happens because people believe in it day in, day out.

“Having silverware in the cabinet, I think that’s the only goal. I believe in it. I think that’s all there is.”

That target might raise a few eyebrows, but head coach Sean Everitt agrees that his team must begin to see themselves as contenders before they will be recognised as such.

“I think we’ve got to start talking a different language,” Everitt told the BBC’s Scotland Rugby Podcast.

“We don’t just want to compete, we’re playing a competition to win. We’re in professional sport.

“But I think the start is really important for us.”

That was where Edinburgh fell down last season, their slow start necessitating a strong finish just to reach the top eight.

An opening day assignment away to Zebre – the perennial URC strugglers whom Edinburgh failed to beat home or away last season – will provide an early marker as to how serious the capital side are about being big players.

A lot of experience went out of the door over the summer in the shape of Jamie Ritchie, Ali Price, Dave Cherry, Emialiano Boffelli and others, and the injury list before the first whistle is already brutal.

However, there is excitement about what youngsters such as back-rows Freddy Douglas and Liam McConnell, as well scrum-half Conor McAlpine, can offer when given a chance.

Glasgow have been a consistent presence at the top end of the table under Franco Smith’s astute management, but there is a sense of expectations being managed at Scotstoun.

Some key players have moved on, including Tom Jordan, Sebastian Cancelierre and Henco Venter.

These guys will leave a big hole and Smith admits he, and the Warriors fans, may have to bide their time while a new group of younger talent beds in.

“What’s important for me is that the current process is only in year one, it’s a start. It’s not a year seven or a year eight project,” Smith told the BBC’s Scotland Rugby Podcast.

“From my side, I’ll have to be patient if I believe that [last season] was year one. I think this year, starting year two, this current young group and the way the academy is set up can help us.

“If everybody, including our supporters, have patience with that, I think we can maintain a very good record.”

Huw Jones may not be seen in a Warriors jersey this side of Christmas after undergoing Achilles surgery, though Glasgow are not short of midfield options.

Zander Fagerson, who would have joined Jones on the British and Irish Lions tour in the summer were it not for injury, is also working his way back to fitness.

Gaps will need to be plugged in the side by some inexperienced players, but the hope for Glasgow is they have retained enough quality in their ranks to maintain the standards they have set in previous seasons.