Why Edinburgh v Glasgow promises to be such an intriguing battle at Murrayfield - Allan Massie

There isn’t much between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Both have had fair to middling seasons in the hotch-potch that is the URC, a league with a clumsy structure that sometimes looks a bit like a juggling match.

How they finish will – if I’ve got it right – determine which club plays in next season’s Heineken Champions Cup and which in the lower tier Challenge Cups. Ambition says you want to be in the former, but common sense might suggest you’ll have more chance of success in the latter. Scotland may still occupy a respectable position in the World rankings, but Glasgow and Edinburgh would find themselves in a humbler spot in any ranking of European clubs, even though we may take a somewhat sour pleasure from the thought that the professional club game in Wales is in even deeper trouble.

For tonight’s match neither Edinburgh nor Glasgow is at full strength, whatever you might judge that to be. Two of each club’s best back-row will be missing, Rory Darge and Matt Fagerson from Glasgow’s, Jamie Ritchie and Bill Mata from Edinburgh’s. The replacements of course are pretty good, though it is somewhat disappointing that Magnus Bradbury, in good enough form for Edinburgh this season, should be leaving to join Bristol Bears in the autumn. Of course we are always told that one player’s departure is an opportunity for another, but you can’t help thinking that Edinburgh would be stronger next season if Bradbury was still there.

The decision to move tonight’s match from Edinburgh’s mini-Murrayfield where they have flourished this season to the national stadium is no doubt financially justified. There will be a bigger crowd, but it does to some extent cede home advantage. Still this isn’t unusual. All the same, given that Edinburgh have