Bradley bullish on Edinburgh future

It might be a stretch to say Michael Bradley left Dublin a happy man on Saturday night.

After all, his Edinburgh side had just let slip a golden opportunity to become the first Scottish side to reach a Heineken Cup final.

Edinburgh’s offloading skills and expansive ambition created plenty of first-half chances to build a sizeable lead but they were undone by a high error count that dulled their cutting edge.

Yet there was so much for the Corkman to be proud of in his team’s 22-19 semi-final defeat that the former Ireland scrum-half could not help but relish what it is to come.

“I think there are fundamentals there that are very strong,” Bradley said.

“There’s a crop of players, 22 and under, who if we can keep them with the club for a period of time, will be very, very strong competitors in the foreseeable future.

“Then we’ve got to fortify them in terms of equal talents if we don’t have it in our current squad. That’s the formula. Ulster did it to get to this point with four or five lads which they brought in who are good, quality players.

“(Ruan) Pienaar is an example. He was stunning in terms of his management of the game.

“So that’s the formula, everybody knows the formula, but we were able to make a statement with a lot of the talent we currently have, so if we can reinforce that, it’s a good opportunity for us.”

Bradley added: “At the moment we have a very good crop of players and I’m working at a good time in Edinburgh Rugby and already excited about next year.

“That’s a good position to be in. We’re not hanging on. Next year’s not going to be worse, next year’s going to be better. We will be a better side next year, for a number of reasons.”

There is also plenty to be satisfied with from Bradley’s first season in charge though he resisted calling it a successful campaign.

“I think it’s progress,” he said. “We got a home quarter-final and we beat Toulouse with 38,000 people at the match. We came to the semi-final at the Aviva and we were competitive. We won our group in the Heineken and did what we had to do to get the top spot. So all of those are positives. We’ve blooded a lot of young talent and I think they’re extremely talented, so that’s a positive.

“For Edinburgh Rugby as a brand, there’s a lot more respect for the colours now on the basis of how we can play rugby and, given a chance, open people up and that’s a credit to Ulster today for shutting us down.”