Everitt added that he believes that he has enough strength in depth at tight-head prop (including 19-year-old academy prospect Ollie Blyth-Lafferty) should Litterick, as is feared, end up being sidelined for months rather than weeks, meaning he will not be pushing the Murrayfield bean counters to go back into the recruitment market for a new No 3.

“No, not at this stage. We’ve got young Ollie Blyth-Lafferty, who has been training with the seniors and fortunately we’ve five tight-head props in the squad [Litterick, Paul Hill, D’Arcy Rae, Angus Williams and Blyth-Lafferty],” he said.

“It just means that we’ve got one less, but four is what most teams would have, so we’re comfortable with that.”

“We’re happy where Ollie is from a set-piece point of view,” Everitt added. “I suppose it’s how you blood him into the senior system and who he scrums with.

“At the same time, he’s been training with the senior group, and that’s for him to get accustomed to the intensity and obviously the movement that is required for him at this level.

“He’s going to make pleasing progress. We all know that he has potential, and it’s a great opportunity for him to step up now, knowing that there’s a possibility that he might get an opportunity this year.

“We certainly do have plans for him next year, and I’m talking about in January and February onwards, for him to be part of the senior group. We have set targets for his development, and hopeful he can achieve them, because we’d love to see him on the field.

“Obviously with youngsters, you’ve got to make sure that they’re at the right physical development stage of their career as well.

“You want them to be able to handle collisions, and there’s also other areas of the game that they need to grow as well. But if you play them with the right combination, it can work for you, and they can take a lot of confidence out of that. We’ve got certain processes in place that we want to use to get these guys onto the field.”

Meanwhile, Connor Boyle‘s long journey back to fitness following a torn ACL suffered last October appears to have hit a road bump with the flanker’s return to training date having been pushed back from next month (as reported last week) to November.

Stand-off Ben Healy and back-row Ben Muncaster also appeared on the injury list issued earlier today, but Everitt explained that these are not new issues.

“Ben Muncaster will be back probably for round two [of the URC]. He picked up a back injury in the pre-season. And Ben Healy’s still struggling with the patellar tendon injury that he picked up in the previous season,” he said.

Three of the 11 players currently listed as injured have back problems, but Everitt said this was not a cause for concern.

“No, not at all at this stage. With the new players arriving, a guy like Dylan Richardson, for instance, with the training on the new surfaces that we have on the 4G, I think that irritated an old injury of his. But Dylan will be ready to train next week.”

On the plus side, Darcy Graham’s recovery from the ankle injury he suffered playing for the Lions is going well.

“Our target was to get him back on the field for the first URC game,” said Everitt. “We weren’t going to rush things if he wasn’t 100 per cent. But he’s coming through rather quickly now and he’ll be joining parts of our training on Thursday.

“Pierre Schoeman, Duhan van der Merwe and Darcy [who all joined pre-season late after touring with Lions this summer] won’t be involved this weekend, but we’re hoping that they’re up for selection next week.”

Edinburgh’s currently injured players –

  • Charlie McCaig (knee) – Injury sustained against Ulster. Will undergo further tests to determine timeline for recovery
  • Rhys Litterick (achilles) – Injury sustained against Ulster. Will undergo further tests to determine timeline for recovery
  • Tom Dodd (calf) – Out until mid-September
  • Darcy Graham (ankle) – Expected back in late September
  • Ben Healy (knee) – Out until late September
  • Dylan Richardson (back) – Out until early October
  • Callum Hunter-Hill (back) – Out until early October
  • Ben Muncaster (back) – Out until mid-October
  • Rob Carmichael (wrist) – Out until late October
  • Connor Boyle (knee) – Expected to return to training in November
  • Mosese Tuipulotu (knee) – Expected to return to training in December

 

Edinburgh’s build-up to the start of the URC season (kicking-off away to Zebre on Saturday 27th September) will take a step forward on Friday night when they play a double-header against English Championship sides Doncaster Knights (5pm kick-off) and Ealing Trailfinders (8pm kick-off) at Hive Stadium, with the first of those matches being more of a development exercise while the second one will be about getting front-liners match-sharp and battle-hardened.

“We’ve obviously got a lot of the youngsters playing this weekend against Doncaster on Friday night in the first game. There’s another friendly that we’ll be playing the following week against Doncaster, and that is away. And then there’s another A team game at the end of this block, which is round five, against Glasgow,” explained Everitt.

“There’s also some guys that we would like to give more time to on the field this Friday. So, instead of them getting 20 minutes in the second game, we’d rather them get 60 in the first game.

“I think there’s three or four of those guys who will double up, so they’ll play maybe a half for the first game and then come on for 20 minutes in the second game. We’ll just jumble it around, but it’s only four or five players that will do that.”

Despite the injury-list, Everitt says he will not need to cast around for any emergency loans so as to fulfil the two fixtures.

“Yes, we do have enough,” he confirmed. “Fortunately, we don’t have to borrow from other clubs like we have had to do with our A team games in the past. So, our depth in the squad has improved to such an extent that we don’t have to do that.

“Just a couple of the [academy] boys picked up some niggles on the weekend playing club rugby. Jack Utterson was concussed so unfortunately he won’t be available. But we do have other guys that can step in for him.

“And then we also have Matt Davidson, as you would have seen on Friday night, who has joined us from the Sevens and he’ll be with us hopefully until mid-October.”