'The one thing Glasgow have got' that Edinburgh Rugby are striving for

The capital side will need to overturn a 12-point deficit at Murrayfield on Saturday if they are to avoid a fourth successive defeat in the annual competition between the two clubs.

The weekend 24-12 defeat at Hampden was an improvement on the 33-14 hammering of last season but Edinburgh were again second best to their rivals from the west.

Pressed on where Edinburgh fell short, Gilchrist admitted the familiarity of the Warriors midfield trio of Adam Hastings, Sione Tuipulotu and Stafford McDowall was a key factor compared to Edinburgh's less experienced back line.

“It’s just through repetition, isn’t it?" said the Scotland second row. "You’ve got to be there, you’ve got to feel it. We’ve got a younger 10, younger players in a different back line. You know, it’s a different set-up.

“Langers [James Lang] has obviously played a lot at 12 for us. Piers [O'Conor] is coming in, he’s a great player, but it’s just getting those connections. It felt like we were a wee bit disjointed.

“The one thing Glasgow have got is real consistency. You’ve got Hasto, you’ve got Sione, Stafford. They know each other inside out. The link play between them is always so seamless.

“And we have to keep striving to get towards that. That will come through time, with these guys playing together and finding that rhythm. We’ve got to find that this week so we’re more accurate with the ball in hand.”

An extensive injury list is not helping Edinburgh's cause - five senior players are set to miss the return leg - but Gilchrist refuses to use it as an excuse.

“Yeah, but that’s professional rugby," he said. "You’re going to have some injuries. I believe that, in the guys we had on the pitch on Saturday, we had enough. We just had to be better. And that’s on us to put some things right and make sure that, when we get our opportunities, we can keep them under pressure rather than releasing that pressure.

“Because at times they gave away a lot of penalties as well and invited us in. We scored from one of them, a maul try.

“One really frustrating part of the game for me was when we were an inch from the line and we moved the ball wide and didn’t score. We had the same at Castres the previous weekend.

“So when we’re an inch from the line on Saturday, we stay there and we score.

“They did that to us. We had a penalty advantage, yeah, but it’s not a free hit, we must keep playing.

“There’s some learnings there. But 12 points, I think from the boys’ point of view we can still take a lot of belief from how we played on Saturday into the second leg. It’s not an unforeseeable deficit."

Asked whether a lack of composure was an issue, Gilchrist replied: "A little bit. I think we had some skill errors as well - it was more our execution, I thought. We didn’t look frantic - we just threw a few bad passes and dropped a few balls in contact. We didn’t then have the chance to keep the pressure on them.

“Certainly, when we’re close to the line, composure, yes. But I think some of that attack just needs to be more accurate.”

While the trophy has eluded them, Edinburgh have won the home leg of the 1872 Cup in each of the past two seasons to secure important URC points. That gives Gilchrist confidence that his side can push for a 13-point win on Saturday as he called on his teammates to "throw our own punches" after a resolute defensive display at Hampden.

"I’m so proud of the fight, how we defended, but you can’t try and defend for the whole time," he said. "We have to throw our own punches. We have to be better when we’ve got the ball.

"You don’t beat Glasgow without defending well. We showed on Saturday we can withstand a lot. We’re a tough team to play against.

"We had them right where we wanted them coming in at half-time, but that inability for us... We defended well, got up to halfway, and then invited the pressure back in.

"When we got our chance to strike, we then found ourselves clunky. An error would happen and then we found ourselves back in again.

"We lost one or two lineouts in that strike zone as well. It was a chance for us to start pressuring them, and then we were back in showing that fight. I’m sure everyone watching the game saw how hard the boys were working defensively. But when we got the ball, we didn’t have the same cutting edge we needed to come out with the right result.

“But yeah, it needs the same emotional reaction. We’re a bloody good team at home - we’ve shown that over a number of years.

“We know what it takes this week to get that right. We’ve done that the last two years.

“We’re going to have to dig deep again and find that emotional energy, physicality, and then just being a bit more accurate in those key moments.”