Come the turn of the year, Edinburgh were beginning to show a bit more steel. One of the biggest tests would come in the first derby of the season. Cockerill built it up. He was a human loud-hailer. He said he thought he was getting places with his new team but that this would be their biggest examination. “We might lose by 50 points and get shunted back to square one,” he said. “Then again, we might win.”
Almost 24,000 people turned up to see it. Glasgow had won 10 out of 10 in the Pro14 to that point and scored an early try. Then Edinburgh had Simon Berghan sent off. Only six minutes had been played. After an hour, Glasgow led by 11 points and, though they were unimpressive, you’d have still placed your last pound on them winning.
Edinburgh cranked it up in the closing minutes, their defence was outstanding, their attack based on the pure, unadulterated power of their forwards. Incredibly, after playing with a one-man disadvantage for 74 minutes, they won the game.
This was not normal. Edinburgh’s reputation was that of a side that lost games they should have won rather than winning games they should have lost. Something was changing and it was being led by a pack of forwards that, on their day, were becoming as intense as the man coaching them. Hooker Stuart McInally was beginning to look world class.