Underachieving Edinburgh need ‘whole new vision’

Former Scotland hooker Fraser Brown believes the club needs to develop “a whole new vision” before it can become regarded as a perennial underachievers.

The United Rugby Championship will be contested by head coach Sean Everitt and his team will finish in the top four this year, according to Paul Hill, who even suggested they might challenge for the title.

However, after a desperately bad opening weekend performance, the capital side was defeated by Zebre, who is typically one of the weakest teams in the competition.

According to Brown, “You look at the backdrop of Edinburgh rugby in a brilliant city with a huge rugby following, massive abundance of resources in terms of potential finance and support in the city,” the BBC Scotland Rugby Podcast said.

“Edinburgh Rugby has the potential to have a significant growth club if someone can get that done from the perspective of a managing director or head coach.”

However, I believe it will take a while, and you must give someone time to try to build a club with a completely new image.

That’s exactly what Edinburgh needs, according to someone who I thought about it probably two or three years ago.

After a poor start to the season, Everitt appeared to be under pressure before a late-season improvement in performances and results led to Edinburgh reaching the URC quarter-finals and the Challenge Cup semi-finals.

The South African’s contract expires at the end of the campaign, and he confirmed he hasn’t yet received a new deal offer from Scottish Rugby.

Everitt’s future may depend on what happens next, but Brown thinks that Edinburgh’s issues extend beyond just the head coach.

“Edinburgh seems to be choosing between a Mike Blair or Sean Everitt character,” Brown, who started his career with Edinburgh before establishing his reputation at Glasgow Warriors, and a Richard Cockerill character, which is constantly very authoritarian and very authoritarian.

They just seem to be unable to quite hit that middle-of-the-road sweet spot. You can’t help but notice that this squad is full of Scotland’s starting players.

Why can’t they get results, they ask? They can expect extraordinary outcomes. At the end of last season, we witnessed that in the run for the European play-offs, but they don’t seem to be able to maintain consistency week-over-week. That’s not just a coaching issue, in my opinion.