Meanwhile, Cockerill confirmed that he would like to see Dougie Fife, Jamie Farndale and James Johnstone – who are currently seconded to Edinburgh from the Scotland 7s set-up – join the club on a more permanent basis.
Fife, who is a full Scotland internationalist, made 86 appearances and scored 17 tries in five seasons at the club before being discarded by previous head coach Alan Solomons in the summer of 2016.
During the last month, he was involved in both of the team’s pre-season outings as part of an extended squad, and was then named in the starting line-up for their opening competitive fixture against Cardiff Blues last Friday night.
It was not clear at that stage whether this was simply plugging the gap created by injuries to Fruean, Damian Hoyland and Durhan van der Merwe [another new signing]; or whether Cockerill saw him as a longer-term option for the club.
Cockerill addressed that question yesterday.
“We have three 7s guys in the programme at the moment and they add a bit of depth to the squad. I would like [to keep] them in the squad but that is up for discussion. John Dalziel is running the 7s programme and it would be pretty tough on him,” he said.
“We’ve got to work through that. It’s not just about me pulling rank. I believe that the 7s programme is to produce players for the pro-team and national sides, but we have to make that work within the whole programme. I will be pushing hard to try and keep those lads if I can.”
“All three have been with us full-time for the whole of pre-season. The 7s squad are already training but their competitions don’t start until December. If those guys start commanding places in or around the 23 then you’d like to give them the best shot at playing fifteens.”
“They are Scottish-qualified guys and all very desperate to play for Scotland and Edinburgh.”
Interesting that Cockers is publically asking a question many fans have, what is the point in the 7s programme? I love it, the 7s program needed some definition. Are these guys just 7s players? Where do the academy/fringe players fit it? Cockers asking these questions is great. It's not really functioning as a development pathway at present and Cockers is right, these guys need to play 15s for it to do so.
Fwiw, I think Farndale is still the under20s RWC top scorer ever and this was when Scotland under 20s were awful. He's an incredible talent and has shown he can stay fit which was his problem before, get him involved. Fife is injured for the weekend so an excellent chance for him to get start. Could notch a few vs the Dragons.
On the other hand, no doubt Harries is useful and Duhan van der Merwe looks a real prospect, but couldn't Cockers have signed Farndale/Fife instead?