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'That's the best feeling and vibe we have had in a changing room'
By PA
Damien Hoyland declared victory over Glasgow the all-time high of his Edinburgh career and claimed they could match anyone with a similar performance.
Hoyland scored Edinburgh’s third and final try of a 28-11 win at BT Murrayfield, which secured their entry into next season’s Heineken Champions Cup.
The winning margin was enough to claim the 1872 Cup and set Edinburgh up for a trip to South Africa in the United Rugby Championship quarter-finals, where they will take on the Stormers.
Hoyland said on a club video: “It was awesome. This is my eighth year at Edinburgh and that’s the best feeling and vibe we have had in a changing room after a game.
“I am a bit lost of words, my voice is a bit gone, because everyone has been singing and dancing in the changing room.
“It was just so pleasing to see how much energy we brought in every aspect of that game. I felt like the whole 80 minutes we were just on everything, we were in every moment, we were in the fight for every part of that game. I feel really, really proud to be an Edinburgh Rugby player.”
Edinburgh will have their work cut out in the final eight as Stormers have won eight consecutive home matches to finish runners-up in the URC league table behind Leinster.
However, the two teams drew in the Scottish capital earlier in the season and Hoyland fears no-one.
“That energy we brought in every aspect of that game, we have got to bring that in the next game in two weeks for the quarter-finals,” he said.
“If we bring that intent, that fight, then we’ll give anyone a run for their moment.
“It’s important that we take a few days to enjoy this moment as a squad, that’s really important, but as soon as we are back in training we know we have a massive task ahead of us in a quarter-final and the focus is all going to be on that and about the energy we can bring as well. We are confident that we can back that up.”
Glasgow were consigned to the European Challenge Cup following the defeat while they will travel to face Leinster in the URC quarter-finals in the first weekend of June.
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Like I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.
Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about the worst teams not giving up because they are so far off the pace we get really bad scoreline when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together.
So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).
You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.
I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?
Go to commentsYou always get idiots who go overboard. What else is new? I ignore them. Why bother?
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