Mike Blair: Edinburgh players benefiting from greater freedom

Head coach Mike Blair has identified allowing his Edinburgh players greater freedom to express themselves as a possible reason for their position as United Rugby Championship leaders.

Edinburgh ran in five tries against Cardiff on Saturday for a 34-10 win.

"I'm putting a layer on top of our game, giving the players more authority and giving them a bit more freedom," Blair told BBC Radio Scotland.

"There are some really talented players in there."

The former Edinburgh and Scotland captain took over last summer as Richard Cockerill ended his four-year reign, but he was keen to credit the Englishman's legacy at the club.

• Edinburgh 34-10 Cardiff Rugby

Speaking on Sportsound on Sunday after a confident first display of 2022, Blair said: "I've stressed a lot over the four or five months I've been in, what went before me is crucial to our games, and winning games.

"Mark Bennett was absolutely outstanding. He was really confident. You could hear him shouting for the ball. You give it to him and he's going to make stuff happen around him.

"Blair Kinghorn, despite not having a huge amount of games at 10, he's got the attributes that are harder to coach, that heads-up ability, seeing what's in front of him, scanning and then executing on the back of it.

"There are guys who are capable of doing it and making some very good decisions at the moment."

Edinburgh's sole Championship loss this season was a 28-27 reverse away to Benetton, and they drew 20-all in their following match with Stormers. Their form under Blair means Edinburgh have gone top of a combined table for the first time since they won the first three games of the 2009-10 Celtic League season.

"We are trying to develop within our attack the ability to play in a number of different ways," said Blair.

"We don't want to straitjacket them to just play in a particular way, to just play blindside or just play wide. We are trying to give them the opportunity to play heads-up rugby.

"There were some real stand-out performances and a lot of that is hard work - the hard work the forwards are doing to generate that quick ball but also the work the guys are doing in training.

"There were scenarios within that game that were straight off the training pitch."

The match against the Welsh visitors was Edinburgh's first outing since a 21-18 win over Saracens in the European Challenge Cup on 11 December.

Early tries by Argentine backs Ramiro Moyano and Emiliano Boffelli put Edinburgh in a commanding position from which they never looked like being shaken.

Blair, a 2009 British & Irish Lion, added: "What I'm finding with this group of guys is that there's a real desire to be out there, to be physical and to enjoy their rugby so I shouldn't have been surprised the way we came out the blocks yesterday."