Grant Gilchrist says Scotland team-mate Finn Russell’s game must be disrupted in Saturday’s Challenge Cup semi-final
BBC Scotland’s chief sports writer
European Challenge Cup: Edinburgh v Bath
Where: Hive Stadium, Edinburgh When: Saturday, 3 May Time: 15:00 BST
Coverage: Follow live updates on the BBC Sport website and app
There’s a smile on the face of Grant Gilchrist when the chat turns to Finn Russell and what Edinburgh might have in store for the Scotland fly-half when Bath come to town on Saturday for the semi-final of the European Challenge Cup.
The veteran lock, close to 14 years an Edinburgh man, knows all about Bath’s status as the runaway leaders in England’s Premiership. He has seen the footage of the landslide wins, the 40, 50 and 60-pointers, all inspired by the marvel in the 10 jersey.
That is why he is smiling. Russell’s homecoming is a very big deal and the bid to stop him wreaking havoc is what is floating Gilchrist’s boat.
“This can be a tough place to play, whoever you are,” he says, on the latest Scotland Rugby Podcast.
“We’ve got so much respect for Finn and for Bath as a team, but they’ve got a proposition on their hands if they think they’re coming up here just to have a walk in the park.
“We’re not coming here on Saturday just to hope it’s cagey and hope that they have an off day. They’re coming to our home and we’ve got to go and put our game on them and if it’s not good enough then we can look ourselves in the mirror and say we’re beaten by a better team. But our mindset has got to be that we’re going after them.”
‘Finn is a master with quick ball’
Gilchrist is not just one of Edinburgh’s leaders; he has, too many times, been the man who has had to step forward and explain the non-performances and near-misses that are in the DNA of the club.
They are the great underachievers and they know it. For Gilchrist, who has been an Edinburgh fan since he was a boy, it has been an emotional ride.
The pride he feels in wearing the jersey is absolute, as is the dejection he has shown when things have gone wrong. He wears his heart on his sleeve. The search for a trophy has almost become an obsession at this point.
He has played in a Heineken Cup semi-final and a Pro14 semi-final, both against Ulster and both lost. And here he is again, still fighting and still believing, even when most pundits reckon that Bath will have too much for them.
What do Edinburgh have to get right against Russell’s boys?
“As a pack of forwards, we play our best rugby when we’ve got that intensity and that scrappiness, when we’re sticking up for each other and flying into everything,” he says.
Grant Gilchrist is aiming for the first trophy of his 14-year spell with Edinburgh
A few weeks back, a Sharks squad containing 10 World Cup winners and six double World Cup winners came to Edinburgh and tried to “bully us”, as Gilchrist puts it.
The Sharks won late, late in the day, but it was a battle and Edinburgh went toe-to-toe in the physical stakes.
Finding that consistency has been their issue for years. “We’ve spoken about that being a kind of DNA moment,” he says of recent performances against South African packs.
“That’s got to be every week. That can’t just be when a big South African team comes here to bash you, or when a big English team like this weekend comes to bash you.”
Bath can scrap, but they would rather out-play you with their pace and vision, with Russell pulling all the strings.
In 16 games in three different competitions this season, they’ve hit the 40-point mark. They put more than 50 on Newcastle Falcons and Gloucester – and more than 60 on Gloucester and Saracens.
Gilchrist knows what is coming if Edinburgh allow them to play.
“We’re gonna have to defend unbelievably well,” he said. “We’re gonna have to be as connected as we’ve been. Our first-phase defence is gonna have to stop them on the gainline.
“I’ve seen teams trying to go after Finn, focusing on him and trying to smash him, but he’s too good a player for that. His passing game is too good.
“So, in the physical exchanges, when they carry, it has to be off slow ball. If it’s quick ball or if we are on the back foot then we know that Finn is a master.”
‘We’ve got to write our own story’
The Edinburgh players decided unanimously that they wanted this game played at the Hive rather than in the main stadium at Murrayfield. They want the place to be full and raucous.
It is also going be “a little bit out of the comfort zone for Finn to come here with a different atmosphere to what he might expect”.
Gilchrist talks about the motivation to win, not just for himself or the current squad but for all the others who have gone before, reams of players who have “given their heart and soul” to Edinburgh without ever having had any title to show for it.
There is a mammoth task staring them in the face on Saturday. “Glasgow, rightly, got all the plaudits last season (when they won the URC), but we’ve got to write our own story – and our own story is this weekend,”Gilchrist added.
On his return to Scotland, Russell is going to have a strange kind of welcoming committee waiting for him.
