Mini Murrayfield

Image: © Ian Dodds Taken: 17 Dec 2022

If it wasn't bad enough that a significant number of professional football teams in Scotland play on artificial grass, it turns out that the country's only two professional rugby union teams do the same. As any true sports fan knows, rugby in the winter should be played in teeming rain in so much mud that by the end of the game it is hard to tell which team a player belongs to! Officially this stadium goes by the boring name of Edinburgh Rugby Stadium, but is currently often referred to as 'The Dam', due to it being sponsored by a private healthcare company of that name (DAM Health). It holds just under 8000, and has been used by the Edinburgh team for a year or so now. It is situated within the grounds of the far bigger Murrayfield stadium (which dominates the view from this position). That is where their home matches used to take place; it is generally agreed that this new setup is far better for both players and spectators as it was hard to generate an atmosphere in a ground at 10% capacity. As I was working during the majority of the game I can't provide any match analysis. Edinburgh beat a French side called Castres 30-21 in a group tie of the European Rugby Champions Cup, formerly the Heineken Cup. The Dutch brewing giant is obviously still heavily involved however, as there were last-minute changes required in some of the outside bars as they realised they had to hide their usual Tennent's lagers (Tennent's has its own sponsorship deal with Scottish Rugby) and amend their pricelists. It would probably be more sensible to just go back to calling the competition by its old name (presumably this isn't allowed due to alcohol sponsorship restrictions in certain countries). In much the same way as in European football's Champions League, not all the teams playing are champions - in fact just four out of 24 are - and three of the teams competing this year are South African.

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