Two weeks of the Guinness PRO14 gone, two wins each for the Scottish teams; what kind of new era is this?
One could even argue that neither the Glasgow Warriors under Dave Rennie nor Richard Cockerill’s Edinburgh have put together a totally convincing performance in the first two weeks. Yet both opened with tough away day victories, then backed them up with bonus point home openers.
The Warriors are to be expected; they had a quality squad they enhanced with as many as 13 players in the summer as well as Rennie and two thirds of Vern Cotter’s Scotland coaching team.
Edinburgh had to be better than they were last year, and it’s still early days. But if they beat Treviso next week – and they should – it’ll be five PRO14 wins in a row. The idea that this was a talented squad severely under-achieving is growing, and this year could be a coming of age for Blair Kinghorn and Jamie Ritchie, two players barely out of their teens.
But they’ve beaten Cardiff and Dragons. Glasgow have beaten two play-off rivals in their own conference while all the other four teams with two wins from two across the two conferences have beaten teams that were play-off outsiders, minnows or newly in the league.
It’s early days for Rennie as well. But you get the impression that Cockerill’s Edinburgh might hit the buffers when they come across the Scarlets and Leinster in rounds four and five. Glasgow will fear no-one anywhere winning this well, without Jonny Gray and Stuart Hogg, and not even at full bore.