Borders rugby star Darcy Graham targeting first senior club silverware win after helping book cup semi-final v Bath

The Hawick 27-year-old played for all 80 minutes of that game at the capital’s Hive Stadium as, despite being disadvantaged by a 46th-minute sin-binning for former Melrose winger Ross McCann, head coach Sean Everitt’s hosts secured a last-four tie next month hosting a Bath side potentially featuring his Scotland teammates Finn Russell and Cameron Redpath.

United Rugby Championship outfit Edinburgh’s English opponents set up a trip north of the border on Saturday, May 3, with kick-off at 3pm, by beating Gloucester 61-26 victory at home on Sunday, thanks in part to fly-half Russell, 32, kicking eight conversions out of a possible nine.

At stake will be a place in the final against French opposition – either Lyon or Parisians Racing 92 – in this year’s final in Cardiff on Friday, May 23.

Eight years on from moving to Edinburgh from Hawick, right-winger Graham is hoping to help them secure their first major trophy since going professional in 1996, the closest they’ve got being a 19-13 defeat to Gloucester at London’s Twickenham Stoop in 2015’s EPCR Challenge Cup final, with Kelso’s Ross Ford scoring the Scots’ only try, accompanied by a conversion and two penalties from Sam Hidalgo-Clyne, but 14 points kicked by Jedburgh’s Greig Laidlaw – a conversion of a Billy Twelvetrees try and four penalties – winning the day for their English opposition.

“I would be gutted if I went my whole career and never won anything,” said Graham, capped 46 times for Scotland since 2018, scoring 31 tries. “I would genuinely be gutted.

“This is a massive chance for us.

“Right now, it’s just about taking one game at a time. That’s one thing probably Edinburgh have struggled with in the past – backing wins up with wins – so it’s just about backing them up with that fourth win and so on.

“These are exciting times. The boys know the challenge ahead.

“We’re getting a lot of ball, we’re playing a lot of expansive rugby and it’s good to see. We’ve got so much more in us as well, which is so exciting.”

Graham’s last club cup final was a 55-17 loss to Boroughmuir with Hawick in rugby’s Scottish cup at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium in 2015 and he’d love another shot at silverware with his present side, saying: “The belief is there, for sure, but there are a lot of other factors.

“It’s about getting it right on the day. You can have the game-plan – we can sit for hours in meetings and talk about what we’re going to do – but if we don’t turn up on the day and get the physicality right, get the discipline right and just be clinical and ruthless, it’s not going to work out. It’s just about that 80-minute performance on the day.”

Silverware success would also boost Graham’s hopes of being selected for this summer’s British and Irish Lions tour of Australia, with head coach Andy Farrell scheduled to announce his squad on Thursday, May 8, but Graham insists that’s too far off to be anywhere near the forefront of his thought processes for now.

“It’s obviously always there in the back of your mind,” he said.

“It would be a dream to go, but there’s a lot of rugby to get played up until then, and even before the squad gets announced, that’s a month away.”

He conceded that a challenge cup winner’s medal would boost his case, however, adding: “That would help, wouldn’t it?”

In the interim, next up for Edinburgh is another home game against South African opposition, Durban’s Sharks, back on URC duty, this Friday, with kick-off at 7.35pm.

Now 14 rounds into the season, Everitt’s side go into that game sitting eighth in the standings on 36 points, four places and nine points worse off than their visitors.

Their tries versus Bulls were scored by James Lang at the double, Magnus Bradbury and Grant Gilchrist, with Ross Thompson adding four conversions and two penalties.

David Kriel scored two tries the other way, accompanied by a penalty try, with Cameron Hanekom adding one and Johan Goosen kicking two conversions and Keagan Johannes another.

French Top 14 league rivals Lyon and Racing 92’s challenge cup semi-final is on Sunday, May 4, at 12.30pm at the former’s Stade de Gerland home ground.