Edinburgh Rugby Squad 2021-22

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Re: Edinburgh Rugby Squad 2021-22

Postby The Chiel on Thu Jan 13, 2022 4:56 pm

Agree with all the above on George Taylor - great shame.

Dan Gamble joins Scottish on "short term" loan. Ironically, the front row has been Scottish's best unit this season ( admittedly a low bar . . . :) ), so I'm wondering if there are any Covid implications at Scottish for Saturday.
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Re: Edinburgh Rugby Squad 2021-22

Postby dolf_lundgren on Thu Jan 13, 2022 5:55 pm

doedin wrote:This is very sad, he was a fine player and a future Scotland cap. That tackle by the Scarlets player wasn't a tackle, it was basically an assault and must have been a major contributory factor? Didn't he have fractured eye socket, jaw and something else?


Nose, cheek and eye socket, "a broken face" is how Cockers described it, a shocking tackle which apparently merited a 10wk ban, "mitigated" down to 5wks, for bringing nice biscuits and speaking when spoken to, a joke of a sanction for a dangerous act.

I wish George all the best, as mentioned previously i really thought he was the natural successor to Matt Scott and was developing very well. Seems a very level headed lad too.

Like FKL im off to buy some Biltong.
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Re: Edinburgh Rugby Squad 2021-22

Postby robdinsdale on Thu Jan 13, 2022 6:34 pm

It's a definite shame but health comes first, and at least he's got things going on outside of rugby to move on to.
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Re: Edinburgh Rugby Squad 2021-22

Postby The Feral Goat on Tue Jan 18, 2022 1:25 pm

Gilchrist signs "long term" deal

Tidy group of SQ second rows we will have with good age profiles Gilchrist, Skinner, Young, Sykes and Hodgson.
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Re: Edinburgh Rugby Squad 2021-22

Postby The Feral Goat on Wed Jan 19, 2022 11:33 am

Bradbury linked with Saracens and Exeter according to Thistle Rugby podcast tweet.
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Re: Edinburgh Rugby Squad 2021-22

Postby TheSmidge on Wed Jan 19, 2022 1:27 pm

They always seem to have decent sources, so there is probably something behind that rumour.
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Re: Edinburgh Rugby Squad 2021-22

Postby dolf_lundgren on Wed Jan 19, 2022 4:00 pm

Would be sad to see him go, but we are carrying too much in the back row and we need to see more of Muncaster and Boyle.

Woud be surprised if it was Saracens as Vunipola has re-signed I think and Simmonds is obviously in possession at Exeter. Given their recent selections, he could be playing openside there.

Somewhere like Bath I would have thought would have been more realistic.
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Re: Edinburgh Rugby Squad 2021-22

Postby liveinhope on Wed Jan 19, 2022 4:17 pm

Big risk also on goalkicking.Russell kicked a penalty for Racing on Saturday-he generalyl gets about two kicks a season from them so does surprisingly well for Scotland.Kinghorn now loses out to Bofelli (and VDW) for us and is unreiable under pressure.Otherwise only Hogg -who I'd frankly opt for ahead of Kinghorn in amost siuations.
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Re: Edinburgh Rugby Squad 2021-22

Postby Friday Knight Lights on Wed Jan 19, 2022 6:02 pm

dolf_lundgren wrote:Would be sad to see him go, but we are carrying too much in the back row and we need to see more of Muncaster and Boyle.

Woud be surprised if it was Saracens as Vunipola has re-signed I think and Simmonds is obviously in possession at Exeter. Given their recent selections, he could be playing openside there.

Somewhere like Bath I would have thought would have been more realistic.


Vunipola and Christie! Exeter to replace Dave Ewers at 6 makes sense. Bradbury should want to stay away from Bath.

Muncaster and big Kunavula who has only ever been excellent for Edinburgh.
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Re: Edinburgh Rugby Squad 2021-22

Postby BigD163 on Thu Jan 20, 2022 1:31 pm

Friday Knight Lights wrote:George Taylor had to retire due to concussions. Very sad.

I believe he owns and runs UpNorth Biltong so I put in an order.


Got mine today. It is decent.
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Re: Edinburgh Rugby Squad 2021-22

Postby The Feral Goat on Thu Jan 20, 2022 2:26 pm

BigD163 wrote:
Friday Knight Lights wrote:George Taylor had to retire due to concussions. Very sad.

I believe he owns and runs UpNorth Biltong so I put in an order.


Got mine today. It is decent.


Taylor delivering match ball tomorrow and i believe UpNorth Biltong will be available at Damo's coffee stand at the match
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Re: Edinburgh Rugby Squad 2021-22

Postby The Feral Goat on Fri Jan 21, 2022 5:04 pm

Interview with Taylor in Times today, sounds a horrible injury to have. Would like to think SRU may keep in touch and have him speak to younger players coming through about plan B and dangers of playing on.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b8b0 ... d235e25fc1


Just before kick-off in tonight’s Challenge Cup game between Edinburgh and Brive at the DAM Health Stadium, George Taylor will walk out to deliver the match ball. The ritual is classic ‘beloved former player’ territory and, sadly, that’s what Taylor now is.

Last week, not two months after his 25th birthday, this bustling centre from Earlston in the Borders, who pushed through to the professional ranks on the back of excellent work in a league and cup-winning Melrose team, announced he had decided to retire due to the effects of multiple concussions.

Tonight, Taylor returns to his now former workplace to cheer on his friends and, doubtless, soak up the well-wishes of a sympathetic crowd. “I never got to play at the DAM Health Stadium, so between that and seeing the boys and the fans, I think it’s going to be emotional,” he told The Times in an exclusive interview. “I’ll be fine until I get the ball in my hands and actually have to walk out. That bit will be tough.”

This is, fundamentally, a sad, often troubling, story, but in half an hour of conversation in the coffee bar of an Edinburgh hotel, there is far more light than shade. The one truly shocking moment comes when you ask how hard it had been to admit to himself that it was time to stop.

“It’s actually been a massive sense of relief,” he said. “And that comes from having worked hard on a plan B. There are a lot of rugby players out there that don’t have that plan B, and if I didn’t have that plan B or plan C, I think I would have risked my health for it. I knew if I risked my health, I could have had another year’s contract, another two years’ contract and been like, ‘I’ll sort my plan B out then’. But I knew I had the plan B now. It didn’t help my decision but it removed me from risking my health. It’s PaulHoniss to think, but if I didn’t have a couple of options, I would have risked it, I think.


“Yes, it’s hard to admit that I was going to step away from my dreams, what I’ve loved doing since I was six, but I owe it to myself — both in the here and now and in the future. I want to be able to lift my kid above my head when I’m 35 or 40. I want to be able to do day-to-day stuff: be out on the golf course and enjoying life. For job opportunities, if someone came to me and said, ‘we want you to do this job which involves sitting in front of a computer all day’, I want to be able to take that opportunity. If I got another concussion and all the headaches, would I be able to sit in front of a screen? Possibly not.”

Taylor runs the biltong business that he originally set up with two Edinburgh team-mates of the time, Jason Baggott and Cammy Hutchison. This summer, he will also take on a finance and marketing role with the family animal pharmaceuticals distribution business, which services customers around the world from a base in Kelso. For now, he is doing shifts in the Salisbury Arms, a gastropub across the road from the Royal Commonwealth Pool, and earning rave reviews from punters. “I get on well with people and like learning,” he said. “I helped out in the family business over lockdown and though it’s going to be a big learning curve for me, I’m excited to get stuck in.”

Taylor suffered “four of five” concussions in his three years with Edinburgh. By far the most serious came in November 2020, when an opponent caught him with what then head coach Richard Cockerill described as a “flying headbutt” and broke his nose, cheekbone and jaw.

Taylor is adamant that blame for his overall fate should not be pinned on the guilty party from that match, Scarlets lock Josh Helps, but it is clear that the damage went further than a mashed-up face.


“It took me three or four months to recover from that concussion; it was absolutely brutal,” he recalled. “If I had been sitting down for a while and tried to get up, I would go horribly light-headed and have to steady myself against a wall. This is months later. I couldn’t walk to the shop and back without getting a headache, and I couldn’t look sharply to one side without bringing on another one. I was fine with light, but if there was a loud noise or a bang, it would make me really irritable. As a 23-year-old lad as I was then, it’s actually pretty scary.

“Once you get back running and into the gym, it’s very easy to forget how you felt before, but I said to myself after the Scarlets concussion ‘one more and I’m done. I’m going to call it’. Then you get back playing, you love it again, you kind of forget about it all. But did I get back to being fully confident on the pitch? I’m not sure I did.”


Taylor reappeared towards the end of last season, even being sent off himself for a dangerous tackle of his own against Zebre which cost him a three-game ban. But a further two decisive moments would follow this summer as he tried to prove his worth to new head coach Mike Blair.

“We were in Largs for a training camp at the end of August, and I got another concussion,” he said. “It wasn’t a big impact or a huge collision, just a skiff of head-to-head [contact] right where that old scar was from Scarlets.


“I went down, but wasn’t knocked out. I got up, felt dazed and stepped off the pitch and for five or six weeks after it, I had a headache every day. Because it wasn’t a ‘big’ one, I wasn’t instantly like, ‘I’ve got to stop because I said that’s what I’d do’. For me, it was about getting back as quickly as possible. We had a new stadium, we had a new coach, we had new members of the squad and the vibe was really good. I was like, ‘I can’t miss out on this’.

“But it took me too long to recover and I couldn’t really just ignore what was going on in my head. Then I was back running and gymming and got a rugby ball to the head. Something totally innocuous, but for a couple weeks after that, I was struggling.

“I spoke to the people I needed to speak to: my family, the doc, the physio, Mike Blair. I wasn’t training at that point after the ball to the head flared things up again. Mike said, ‘go home, speak to the family again and don’t rush into anything’. I came out the back end of New Year and for me nothing had changed. I knew what I had to do.”

Taylor had a cautionary tale in his older brother, Richard, who suffered several concussions playing for Melrose and kept coming back for more.

“He took a step back then went back to it after six or seven months. He saw a lot of specialists, a lot of neurologists, and got mixed reviews from them. He decided to go back and play a second XV game. He came on for 20 minutes, got a little rattle to the head and ever since then he’s had trouble sleeping and using screens. To this day, it still affects him. The one thing he’s said to me is that if he could go back, he would never have played that game.”

Taylor regularly emphasises how supportive Blair, the Edinburgh staff and players and the SRU’s player development manager Ben Atiga have been. He also bears the sport no ill will.

“You don’t want to scare people away from rugby,” he said. “It is such a high-impact sport. As long as you’ve got several plans that you can go into. I didn’t know in August that I would be stopping three or four months down the line. So as long as you’ve got a plan, you’ll be in a better place for it.”


He has memories to cherish — those golden days with Melrose, making his Edinburgh debut at Thomond Park, scoring a brace of tries away to Agen, being called up to the Scotland squad last February — but he knows he is doing the right thing.

“When it’s your head, your brain, you can’t really play around with it,” he said. “I’d rather not find out what the next head knock will bring.”
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Re: Edinburgh Rugby Squad 2021-22

Postby Pitfitter446 on Fri Jan 21, 2022 6:33 pm

Thoughtful reading, I’ll be there tonight to applaud and thank him for his efforts. I thought working ‘down the pit’ was dangerous but at least I had a safety helmet.
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Re: Edinburgh Rugby Squad 2021-22

Postby macdone on Sat Jan 22, 2022 10:28 pm

Wish him all the best, very sad. I'm slightly surprised he still had the choice to continue after reading that.
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Re: Edinburgh Rugby Squad 2021-22

Postby macdone on Sat Jan 22, 2022 10:39 pm

Jamie Dobie not in the Glasgow matchday squad again. Coming to the DAM, learning under Mike Blair makes too much sense To me. I'm still flogging that horse.
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