DARCY GRAHAM had double cause for celebration today [Thursday] after it was announced in quick succession that he will make his Edinburgh debut against Sale Sharks at Meggetland on Friday night and then join up with the full Scotland squad on Sunday for their training camp in St Andrews at the start of next week.
The Hawick youngster, who was a star of Scotland’s historic Junior World Cup campaign during the summer, is one of three players making their first start for Edinburgh this weekend, alongside fellow winger and former Wales age-grade internationalist Jason Harries (who signed from London Scottish back in May) and loose-head prop Darryl Marfo (who was recruited from Bath and is qualified to play for Scotland through his Ayrshire grandmother).
The squad contains a number of BT Sport Academy and Scotland 7s squad members on the bench, including hooker Cammy Fenton, who was aligned with Glasgow Warriors last season.
This will also be former Leicester Tiger’s and Toulon boss Richard Cockerill’s first game in charge of the capital outfit.
“We’ve been working hard for the last nine weeks so it’ll be great to get out on the field and fire some live bullets for the first time. It’s been a really good pre-season so it’ll be interesting to see where we’re at,” said the coach.
“Sale obviously had a good win against Castres last weekend and it’ll be stiff opposition with the squad that they’re bringing and the players they’ve signed. The Premiership is a very physical league so they’ll have a really strong set-piece. Sale play a good brand of rugby and they’re very good with ball in hand.”
“We know that they’re going to be very strong and that they’re going to be coming up expecting to win, so it’ll be a good mental test for us. We need to put a marker down around our physicality and our mentality around how we want to play.”
“We’ve got to start putting our bodies on the line and seeing where the team is at.”