It’s a complete role reversal, and it seems distinctly odd.
We’re accustomed to the clichés; Edinburgh is Castle and New Town, the affluent capital more than a little condescending to the shires, all middle class, red and mustard breeks, private schools and the effete delights of festival time.
While Glasgow is down-to-earth if not altogether earthy, no-nonsense, gallus, working class, cranes on the Clyde and people hewn from sandstone of the tenements.
But the rugby teams don’t currently reflect their environments. It’s the Glasgow Warriors who are the flash entertainers, the pin-up boys, all guile and speed and tempo. And Edinburgh Rugby are the artisans, all structure and setpiece and honest toil.
It’s as if someone stuck a traffic cone on the Greyfriars Bobby’s head, or a mime artist moved into residence at the Pavilion Theatre.
There’s no question which style is in ascendancy at present between the two. Edinburgh are clearly under the Warriors’ skin, winning three of the last four meetings ahead of Saturday’s clash at Scotstoun.
Even the one they lost, “the fire alarm game” exactly a year ago at Scotstoun, the contest was mostly played on Edinburgh’s terms and tempo, the 17-0 Glasgow win embellished by a Lee Jones try in added time.
Saturday’s game at Murrayfield underlined that even with Glasgow’s improved forward oomph this year, a toughening-up Richard Cockerill entertaining called “going to fight club in pre-season”, Edinburgh remain a problem for them.
The Warriors are not the soft touches in the tight they were last year. But their style requires a certain amount of space and tempo to operate, and Edinburgh were outstanding at denying them both.
Glasgow like to play at a ferocious pace, but Edinburgh have the knack of drawing the fire out of their games with the Warriors, specifically now with Henry Pyrgos at scrum-half.
His quite intentional lack of urgency at the base and long box kicks ensured Edinburgh exited danger areas efficiently and put pressure on Glasgow’s feared counterattack.
The other aspect was defence, and D-coach Calum MacRae’s gameplan succeeded in denying Glasgow, and particularly Adam Hastings, the space in which to operate.
There’s no question Edinburgh took a leaf out of Saracens’ book from the Heineken Cup meeting with Glasgow back in October, where the relentlessness of English champions’ aggressive defence restricted the Warriors to three points and gave Hastings his only other really iffy outing this season.
Hastings will be back on Saturday – I’d be stunned if Dave Rennie drops him – with orders to adjust and drop deeper to give himself and the Glasgow backs more time and space to operate.
Hamish Watson, who spent a great deal of Saturday in Hastings’ face, should have further to go to create some mayhem and that should be the “space” that was the motif of Dave Rennie’s after-match comments.
One suspects that Glasgow won’t throw two interception gifts this week but if the Warriors are thinking 1) that was the only difference between the sides and 2) Edinburgh have no other real threat they’d be entirely wrong.
One could argue the best structured attacking move of the match was Edinburgh’s, Duhan van der Merwe skinning Tommy Seymour on the outside, James Johnstone carrying on and only Callum Gibbins’ rather unsubtle obstruction (and yellow card) saving Glasgow from conceding another try.
The real way that Glasgow can fight back is to get under their opponents’ noses as effectively as Edinburgh have done to them.
That means sticking to the tempo game, which Edinburgh won’t be able to live with if it clicks, but also having a far greater edge about them.
I’m not advocating Chris Fusaro pulling people’s hair like he did famously in one 1872 Cup game, but they have to pin Edinburgh back in their territory and – figuratively of course – stomp on their necks. I see Ryan Wilson, always involved in the abrasive stuff, returning to be chief organiser of this.
This is not easy – under Cockerill, Edinburgh have a simply outstanding disciplinary record – but Glasgow simply have to be much more Weegie than they’ve been in recent 1872 contests.
Finn being Finn
It’s certainly a contender among Finn Russell’s greatest hair-brained ideas – a huge floated pass across his own in-goal area during Racing’s home game with Perpignan last week.
The pass was easily intercepted for a gift try, of course, resulting in various Twitter memes pointing out this is what you get with Finn – magic or madness.
This is probably true, but none of the tweets decrying the daft pass related the final score of the match; 62-24 to Racing.
If anything, I’m enjoying Finn playing at Racing even more than I did when he was at Glasgow or Scotland. They seem happy to let his free spirit go.
There’s many who can’t deal with this knife-edge, and hanker after a Duncan Weir or even a Dan Parks.
I’ll take Finn being Finn anytime.