Edinburgh to spring a 'surprise' against Bulls
SPOTLIGHT: Edinburgh will fight fire with fire when they face the Bulls in their Challenge Cup quarterfinal on Saturday.
Sean Everitt’s side will be up against South African opposition for a second weekend in a row at home after they beat the Lions 24-12 in their Round of 16 clash.
The Bulls secured their place in the last eight with a 32-22 away win over Bayonne.
The story continues below…
“I think we’re in a really good place at the moment,” Edinburgh loose forward Magnus Bradbury told Scottish media this week.
“Our game hasn’t changed much, the principles haven’t changed, but we’ve just got a lot better at delivering them.
“Defensively, we’re the strongest we’ve been all season.
“Against the Lions, we made them play where they didn’t want to play. We kept them in the middle of the park and closed them down.
“We know that the Bulls are a step up physically, definitely.
“We know these South African teams, if you go toe to toe with them, if you surprise them with your physicality, then anything can happen.
“I fully believe we can beat them here.”
The story continues below…
Bradbury said there has been a big shift in focus in the Edinburgh squad during the Six Nations period after they suffered a 17-22 home defeat to Zebre in the United Rugby Championship.
“We lost 15 to 20 boys, so it was a really small group we had and we delivered each week,” said the No.8.
“We revisited our principles. So, it was like a mini pre-season for us. We had six, seven weeks with just that group.
“So, we said to ourselves: ‘When the Scotland boys come back in, it’s going to feel like a different environment’.
“So, we pushed the coaches a lot. Not that they weren’t giving us an opportunity to speak, but we wanted to change things.
“We wanted to become more player-led, so we had more responsibility with the game plan, so we can then grow ourselves and make it a 50-50 environment rather than the 60-40 that it was before.
“I think that paid huge dividends.
“And then the Scotland boys come back and they’ve added their own experience.
“When you’ve got international calibre players delivering on a really strong game plan, a really clear game plan, it can only go from strength to strength.”
Source: The Scotsman
Rugby’s best of the best, ranked by experts. Check out our list of the Top 100 Men's Rugby Players and let us know what you think!
