THE FUSE

So Edinburgh coach Sean Everitt has laid it on the line. Having beaten Toulon at home in round one before getting whacked by Castres away in round two, there's no real safety net for his boys in the Champions Cup against Gloucester on Friday at the Hive.

Not with Bath at the Rec to come in their final game. You'd need to travel a long way to find somebody who thinks that Edinburgh will win that one.

With five points in the bag, it has to be a victory against struggling Gloucester. And a victory with a flourish, at that.

"We need to get five points at home if we want to stay in the race for the last 16," said Everitt.

"Ten will keep you in the hunt and then it's a difficult game away in Bath. So that's the reason why we need five. If we don't get five, we make it really difficult next week."

There are no guarantees but two wins out of four and 10 points should be good enough to scrape into the play-offs. Ulster made it with one win last season and Racing and Munster did it with one the season before, but the odds are not good.

Edinburgh are coming off the back of a win in Treviso, which is rare. Gloucester, meanwhile, are on a run of four straight defeats with 18 tries conceded.

Everitt's team are hardly riding high in the URC, but Gloucester are second from bottom of their own league and have just lost to bottom-placed Newcastle.

Gloucester have inflicted some wounding European defeats on Edinburgh over the last decade - a one-pointer and a five-pointer in 2024 and, worst of all, a six-pointer in the Challenge Cup final of 2015. As a club, they owe Gloucester a beating.

Edinburgh, of course, are cursed by a lack of consistency, they're plagued by an inability to build on encouraging performances. They've turned corners and then run into walls. They've hailed bright new dawns only for the clouds to appear. This is their lot in life. One step up and then into a pothole.

"We've become defensively strong and that's a part of our DNA," said Everitt. "The areas that we struggle with is the attack. We haven't been able to pick the same team for a period of time, so attack takes a bit of cohesion within your selection.

"There was an improvement in that area against Benetton that was pleasing, although when we're 10 metres from the line we need to be more accurate, we need to be more patient in that zone."

Everitt is spot-on about the defence. Edinburgh can be pretty mean. Only the Stormers and Glasgow, the top two in the league, have conceded fewer tries. It's not a massive surprise because, on their best days, there is a belligerence in this team that can be hard to break. There are some doughty characters in their forward pack, which makes their overall failure all the more maddening.

Much of that rests on their attack, or what passes for their attack. The raw facts are that Edinburgh, 10th in the URC but with a game in hand, are not scoring enough. Only Benetton, Zebre and the Scarlets are on fewer tries in the URC this season.

Inconsistency at 10 and a lack of guile in the midfield is the root cause. They're decent everywhere else.

The back three on Friday is Wes Goosen, their best player last season, and Scotland's all-time leading try-scorers, Darcy Graham and Duhan van der Merwe.

On paper, that's an outstanding trio, but in reality, Van der Merwe hasn't done it for Edinburgh for a while.

Since moving back up the road from Worcester in 2022 he's scored 16 tries in 41 games for his club. In the same period he's scored an astonishing 23 tries in 33 games for Scotland.

He gets more chances with a Scotland team orchestrated by Finn Russell and built to attack, but Graham is in the same boat and his Edinburgh record outstrips Van der Merwe's.

Edinburgh need both of them firing, both of them looking for ball and rampaging. Van der Merwe has only scored once for Edinburgh this season. When asked if he's suffering a Lions hangover, Everitt says no.

"I think it's just the injuries that have plagued him," adds the coach. "Prior to the Lions tour, he struggled to get back and maybe didn't have enough game-time. I've chatted to him around consistency and performance, but that will come with game-time.

"Hopefully he can get a good run in before the Six Nations, which will get him back to his best. We've certainly got plans in place for him to get there."

Everitt has loaded his bench against Gloucester, a 6-2 split with Pierre Schoeman and Ewan Ashman two of the six. His starting front-row - James Whitcombe, Harri Morris and Ollie Blyth-Lafferty - is callow but the back-up is vastly experienced.

Everitt's second-row is without Grant Gilchrist and Sam Skinner but Callum Hunter-Hill and Glen Young are tough operators.

His back-row of Liam McConnell, Freddy Douglas and Magnus Bradbury with Ben Muncaster in reserve is formidable.

Despite a long list of injured forwards, that pack has aggression and grunt written all over it. As ever, how to make the best of their hard yards is the conundrum.

Ross Thompson keeps the 10 jersey with James Lang and Matt Currie in the midfield. After using five different combinations at centre this season, Everitt seems to have settled on that one.

The coach continues to bat away questions about his own future, but this is the type of game that will determine what future, if any, he has in the capital. Does he deserve to stay? Does he even want to stay?

All of that is on the backburner. For now, the only thing that matters is Edinburgh's search for the holy grail of consistency. On their home patch, they should win and maybe win with that bonus point. As ever with Edinburgh, though - seeing is believing.