Scotland assistant coaches Stevie Scott and Duncan Hodge were appointed on Wednesday as interim coaches of Edinburgh Rugby. Incumbent head and assistant coaches Michael Bradley and Neil Back have left their posts with immediate effect having agreed terms to bring their contracts to an early end – Bradley’s was due to expire this May, and Back the following season.
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Scott and Hodge remain committed to the RBS 6 Nations campaign, and will take the reins as head and assistant coach of the capital club after the competition’s conclusion (Monday 18 March).
In the meantime, the players will continue the strength, conditioning and skills phase of the current fallow period of the RaboDirect PRO12.
Scottish Rugby Chief Executive, Mark Dodson, said: “We feel this move is necessary to give a fresh impetus to the squad going into the remainder of the season.
“Our search for a new coaching team for Edinburgh Rugby continues, with a view to getting the club back on a winning track.”
Edinburgh Rugby managing director, Craig Docherty, said: “I’d like to thank Michael and Neil for all of their input and wish them the very best in the future.
“It’s heartening to welcome the appointment of two former Edinburgh Rugby and Scotland internationalists to our back-room on an interim basis.
“I believe they are the right people to inspire our squad for the remainder of the season and assess the player group going forward.”
Edinburgh Rugby interim head coach, Stevie Scott, said: “I’m delighted to be given this opportunity for the rest of the season.
“Naturally the big thing for me at the moment is my commitment to the national team but, come a week on Saturday night in Paris, I’ll be straight into Edinburgh Rugby mode and will be working with Duncan [Hodge] to get the players ready for the home match against Ulster and the rest of the season.”
Edinburgh Rugby interim assistant coach, Duncan Hodge, echoed Scott’s sentiment, adding: “As an assistant coach to the Scotland team, my focus is completely on my role in producing a winning team in the RBS 6 Nations.
“However, as someone who played over 150 games for the club, I’m delighted to be given this opportunity to assist Edinburgh Rugby and have an influence on the last five games of the season.”
This is a real pity as at the start of the season had high hopes for Edinburgh following their Heineken Cup showing last year and thought that with the arrival of Neil Back this season as well as various signings on the player front that they would have done well. Maybe my judgement was clouded by the Heineken Cup run which in hindsight has an element of luck in the first place depending on what pool opponents you get drawn with and then you don’t have to win that many games to get into the knockout stage, in comparison in the Pro12 league where you have to perform well over a long season on 22 pre-knockout stage games Edinburgh didn’t do that well ending 11th – second last, in spite of having top try scorer Tim Visser playing for them
Wonder what has gone wrong at the club this season only won 4 out of 17 Pro12 games and no Heineken Cup games so thats a return of 4 wins out of 23 competetive games, just not good enough although one would have thought in the current economic situation they would have let Mr Bradley see out his contract, guess the situation was a bit different for Neil Back who had a lot longer left on his contract. At one point during Edinburgh’s game against Scarlets on Friday the camera panned out to the pair just after the harsh yellow carding of Dougie Fife and they looked really glum. All the best to them hope that they can go on and learn from this and achieve much more in the rest of their coaching career whereever that may be as they both seem to have lots of time left to be able to do so.
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