MATT Williams insisted that his return to Murrayfield nearly four years after his sacking as Scotland coach held no fears, merely hopes, that his Ulster side can continue their rise in the Magners League by securing the double over Edinburgh.
The former New South Wales Waratahs and Leinster coach found the going tough in Scotland, both on the field where his national squad managed just three victories in 17 Test matches, and off it as his rhetoric often jarred uncomfortably with the rugby
populace.
His future looked bleak after just 16 months at the Scotland helm, but after a slow start in his first few months at Ulster it has revived with five wins and a draw in their last seven games – a run which started with victory over Edinburgh at Ravenhill and was topped last weekend by a bristling 37-11 win over Munster in front of 25,000 fans at Thomond Park.
Williams has enviable talent at his disposal and has made four changes to the winning side, but there is still no place in the 22 for Rob Dewey, the former Edinburgh centre named in his enlarged squad at the start of the week. Mark McCrea replaces injured Fijian wing Timoci Nagusa, David Pollock takes over from Kieron Dawson, last week's captain, who starts on the bench, and Ireland hooker Rory Best resumes in the front row and as skipper.
Looking forward to the match, Williams said: "My heart rate won't change. We'll walk through the (Murrayfield] door and go out and do what we have to do. It's not about me; it's about the boys. Edinburgh are a powerful team of great professionals, and we'll give them the respect they deserve. The bad news for our opposition is that there were so many aspects of our game I wasn't happy with on Saturday night. We can improve a lot in three or four areas, tactically and technically.
"We're in a really positive frame of mind and we have to take that on the road, but that shouldn't be a worry for us and there is no reason why we can't win away from home. We proved that at Thomond Park.
"Before it was just about convincing people and now we have got the proof. We threw points away earlier in the season and now it is up to us to get them back. If we can win on Friday it's incredible how close to the top of the table we can come, so we're going to give it a go."
Edinburgh are just one point and one place ahead of Ulster and, with the top two Ospreys and Munster meeting tonight, and Cardiff at Leinster on Sunday, the winner of this game may indeed launch themselves into the league's top three.
Edinburgh have had to deal with another of those injury plagues that attack one part of the team, this time the back row. Five players are unavailable, but the quality of club captain Simon Cross and 21-year-old Roddy Grant, who comes in for his Magners League debut is such that Andy Robinson, the home coach, is optimistic of his team bouncing back from the tousy defeat at Glasgow and halting the Ulster revival.
The emergence of Ross Rennie, Alan MacDonald, John Barclay and Johnnie Beattie, following on from Simon Taylor, Allister Hogg, Dave Callam and Alasdair Strokosch, underlined that Scotland's back row factory remained in productive mode.
The talent of Roddy Grant may owe more to schooling in South Africa – he was born in Botswana after his parents moved there from Scotland – but, preparing to face a former Durban schools rival in Ulster's Robbie Diack and give Edinburgh a chance to compete in the crucial contact area, the youngster admitted his ambition was to swell further Scotland's back row reserves.
He said: "My parents are both from Scotland and my granddad (Bob Burrell] was a Scotland international referee and my great-uncle (Dod Burrell] played for Scotland and managed the British Lions in 1977, so as soon as I finished school I was always coming here.
"I enjoyed it at Gala and it has been good at West of Scotland this season, and it has been great playing for and captaining Scotland at sevens. I've learned a lot from that. This is a fantastic opportunity now to take the next step into the professional game. Playing in the Magners League is what every young player in Scotland wants to do, and I just want to grab my chance.
"Of course, I want to win a professional contract – that's the ambition – and play for Scotland, but right now it's about taking the chances you get and I'm pretty excited about this one."
When Edinburgh lost a sluggish encounter away to Ulster it was a major disappointment, and while the visitors arrive in Scotland with the confidence tables turned, and a coach with something to prove in this neck of the woods, another defeat would be every bit as unpalatable and debilitating to the hosts' desire to improve and challenge for this season's title.
