Looking back on the 2023 Championship it’s still hard to get away from the disappointment in how it finished. I spoke to the players in our huddle post-match, after the Semi-Final loss at Hawthornden against eventual winners of the competition Stirling Wolves, about not allowing one match to define our season. To look past it and appreciate the successes we did have and the shifts we made as a group.

Whilst we didn’t lift the trophy, we did top the league by 5 points (19 points more than Stirling Wolves) and finished with a record of 10 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses. We scored 5 more tries than anyone else, with 77, and topped the table for total points for and had a points difference which was 90 more than the other sides. It wasn’t a bad season.

We won the league with a game to spare versus Watsonians at Goldenacre, but it was probably our first meeting at Myreside which will be the stand out moment from the season. A 64-0 away win, where everything clicked, and will go down as one of the club’s biggest ever victories against our city rivals.

There were also a number of individual successes through the season. We had 19 players make their debut for the club, 8 make their 25th appearances and our first 4 players making their 50th appearances at Super Series level (Ronan Seydak, Josh Scott, Ross Jones & Michael Liness). Furthermore, a key goal for us each season is to have as many players as possible coming through our environment and going on to higher representative honours. We had 9 players involved with the pro teams – training and playing for their “A” teams – and 2 of whom played in Edinburgh’s pre-season match versus Connacht (Matt Davidson & Liam Richman).