Edinburgh Top the URC Before Europe and New Zealand

Edinburgh Rugby sit top of the BKT United Rugby Championship on 14 points after a 29-12 bonus-point win in Parma, their best league start since 2015/16. Glasgow Warriors are second on 13, still unbeaten, after a 36-19 win over Connacht at Scotstoun.

The return for that 1-2 is immediate. RC Toulon visit Hive Stadium on Friday, 16 October, Sale Sharks host Glasgow the next afternoon, and New Zealand arrive at Scottish Gas Murrayfield on 7 November.

A 29-12 Win Puts Edinburgh Top of the URC

Sean Everitt’s side have taken 15 points from a possible 15 if you count the two try bonuses, and they are the only team with three wins. The capital club beat Ulster 34-29 in Belfast, edged the Stormers 17-13 at Hive Stadium, then closed the job in Italy when replacement Tom Currie finished a rolling maul in the last minute.

Matt Currie, the co-captain, scored first after carries from Pierre Schoeman, Ewan Ashman and Magnus Bradbury. Freddy Douglas, the openside, added a close-range second, his second of the league campaign after a similar finish against Ulster. Bradbury, named the BKT player of the match, went over early in the second half from a Douglas assist, and James Grayson’s boot made it 22-5 before Zebre Parma cut the gap to ten.

Edinburgh played through two yellow cards, one of them for replacement hooker Harri Morris, and Ashman came back on to cover the front row. Four tries, three conversions and a Grayson penalty produced the 29-12 score. The visitors scored 80 points and conceded 54 across the three rounds.

URC AFTER THREE ROUNDS

The Bulls have the gaudy plus-72 and 126 points scored, yet they already have a defeat. Edinburgh and Glasgow are the only unbeaten sides left, which is why the official championship account put the two Scottish clubs on top of the graphic after round three.

Scottish sides on top 🤯

How we stand after Round 3️⃣✨#BKTURC #URC pic.twitter.com/YZ8pNDksIF

— BKT United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial) October 11, 2026

Bradbury’s own verdict after Parma was short, and it fits the way Everitt’s pack has played for three weeks.

We doubled down on who we are and it paid off today

Magnus Bradbury, Edinburgh co-captain, after Zebre Parma

Glasgow’s Maul Keeps the Unbeaten Run Alive

Franco Smith’s team are not on 15 points. They drew 33-33 with Ulster at Scotstoun the week after a 26-20 win at Munster, so the Connacht night was the one that had to be closed out at home. They did it 36-19, with three of the five tries coming from the same play: a driving maul that Connacht could not live with.

Gregor Hiddleston, the hooker who scored on his Scotland debut in the 47-38 win over Argentina in Córdoba in July, went over twice. Rory Darge charged down an early drop-goal attempt, then scored from the same maul. Replacement hooker Seb Stephen added another after Connacht had pulled the gap back to seven through Josh Ioane’s two tries. Dan Lancaster’s late penalty completed the 36-19.

The backs still had a say. Jamie Dobie, who marked his 100th Glasgow appearance with two tries at Munster and scored again in the Ulster draw, collected a Lancaster cross-kick, chipped inside, and Josh McKay finished. Dobie had already scored twice for Scotland against Fiji in August. The Warriors have 14 tries in three league games, four more than Edinburgh, and they sit on 13 points with a plus-23.

EDINBURGH’S THREE RESULTS

• Round 1: Ulster 29-34 in Belfast, with tries from Douglas, Malelili Satala, Hector Patterson and Piers O’Conor and 14 points from Grayson before a late fightback.
• Round 2: Stormers 13-17 at Hive Stadium, Paul Hill from a Jerry Blyth-Lafferty break and 19-year-old Rory McHaffie with the winner on his home debut.
• Round 3: Zebre Parma 12-29, four tries and a last-minute maul that took them top.

Glasgow’s path was bumpier, and that is the point. An unbeaten record built on a draw and a maul is still a record, and it is the platform Smith takes to England on Saturday.

Eleven Years Ago This Start Did Not Last

Edinburgh’s own preview of Toulon states the claim in club language: the best start to a URC campaign since 2015/16. That season, under Alan Solomons, they actually went one better than this before the calendar turned.

THE 2015/16 OPENING RUN

1. 4 September 2015: Beat Leinster 16-9 at Meggetland, Damien Hoyland with both tries.
2. 12 September 2015: Win 27-24 at Benetton Treviso.
3. 2 October 2015: Beat Ospreys 20-9 at Murrayfield, a third straight win.
4. 16 October 2015: Beat Ulster 16-10, four from four.
5. 24 October 2015: Lose 19-11 at Zebre in Parma, the same ground Edinburgh have just left with five points.
6. 31 October 2015: Lose 14-9 at Connacht.
7. 7 November 2015: Lose 14-16 at home to Munster.

They finished ninth in that 12-team Pro12, with 11 wins, 11 losses and 54 points. Glasgow, in the same season, finished third on 72 and reached the semi-finals. The warning is not mystical. A four-win start in 2015 ran into Europe, a round in Italy they could not close, and then the autumn Tests. This time the Italian trip is already in the bag. The rest of the sequence is still on the fixture list: Lions at Hive Stadium on 23 October, Benetton away on 31 October, then the international window.

Newbridge, Ten Tries and a Sale Rematch

On 12 October 1996, the same calendar week 30 years on, Glasgow ran out at the Welfare Ground in Newbridge for their first match as a professional side. It was the European Conference, the ancestor of the Challenge Cup, because the SRU had given its Heineken Cup places to Edinburgh, the South, and Caledonia. Glasgow’s consolation was a pool that started against a Welsh club with a population of about 8,000, three first-choice players injured, and a coaching team that had resigned a fortnight earlier.

They still scored ten tries in a 62-38 win at the Welfare Ground. Derek Stark got four of them, a European record for the club that the old match report says has never been matched. Kenny Logan scored two, Alan Bulloch two, Glenn Metcalfe one, Cammy Little one. Edinburgh, that same day, were at Bath in the Heineken Cup and lost 55-26, Scott Hastings captaining a side still training at nights.

We were midway in the second half, and Kenny Logan burst on to a back line move from full back, blasted through two tackles, and ran 60 metres to score.

Match report republished by Glasgow Warriors, 12 October 1996

The report looked ahead to Sale on the Wednesday and Montferrand the following Saturday, and it warned that Newbridge might be the poorest side Glasgow would meet. Historical recaps of that pool record four straight losses after the opener, Sale among them. Thirty years later the Warriors go back to Greater Manchester, this time in the Investec Champions Cup, to face Sale Sharks at CorpAcq Stadium on Saturday, 17 October, kick-off 1pm. They won there last season and used it as the start of an unbeaten pool. Pool 1 this time also holds Pau, Leicester Tigers and Clermont Auvergne.

Toulon Bring White and Jones to Hive Stadium

Edinburgh open the EPCR Challenge Cup at home on Friday, 16 October, kick-off 8pm. The visitors are a Top 14 club with a three-from-three record against Toulon that the capital side still owns: 40-14 at Murrayfield and 28-17 at Stade Mayol in 2018/19, then 33-20 at Hive Stadium last December in the Champions Cup. Ben White, the Scotland scrum-half, scored twice that night on his return to Edinburgh. Huw Jones, who left Glasgow for Toulon this summer, comes back with him, in a midfield that also includes France centre Gael Fickou.

Toulon’s league form is a mess and a reset at once. They had won one of five Top 14 matches, lost 28-0 at Montpellier, and sat 13th when Pierre Mignoni stepped down. Franck Azéma, back in charge, then beat Racing 92 29-15 at Mayol. They reached last season’s Champions Cup semi-finals after that December loss in Edinburgh. White will know the corners of Hive Stadium. Jones will know half the home pack from Glasgow training.

The other selection news is the one that changes November as well as Friday. Darcy Graham, ruled out for at least 12 weeks in September with a ruptured bicep, is available for selection this week. Grant Gilchrist, also back from a bicep injury, is in the same mix. Edinburgh defence coach Brad Davis put it in the language coaches use when the medical room has changed its mind.

What we get told as coaches is that he’s available for selection this week so he can come into the mix. It’s a really positive thing for us as a club, and I’m sure everyone will be super excited about that.

Brad Davis, Edinburgh defence coach

Whether Graham starts against Toulon is a different question from whether Townsend can pick him. The November squad is due this week. A winger who was supposed to be watching New Zealand from the stand is now a club option on Friday night.

Scotland Host New Zealand on 7 November

Club form is the evidence Townsend can actually see. Douglas and Bradbury are carrying Edinburgh’s back row. Darge and Hiddleston are scoring for Glasgow from the same set-piece Scotland will need in November. Ashman has played again. Dobie is in mid-season touch. The hole in that list, until this week, was Graham.

Scotland already have 11 points from the southern half of the Nations Championship and sit one behind France in the northern table. They beat Argentina 47-38 in Córdoba, with Hiddleston’s debut try, took a bonus-point 42-28 defeat to South Africa in Pretoria, then beat Fiji 33-17 at Murrayfield. The home series is three Tests in 15 days.

SCOTLAND’S NOVEMBER DATES

• Saturday 7 November, 2:10pm: Scotland v New Zealand on 7 November at Scottish Gas Murrayfield. The All Blacks fixture has sold out.
• Sunday 15 November, 3:10pm: Scotland v Australia, the side they beat 27-13 in 2024.
• Saturday 21 November, 2:10pm: Scotland v Japan, then the finals weekend in London on 27 to 29 November.

Tickets remain for Australia and Japan. In the Premiership, 18-year-old Scotland Under-20 stand-off Jake Dalziel made his Newcastle Red Bulls debut in a 34-28 loss to Exeter Chiefs and put Christian Wade in for a try with a show-and-go. That is a different league and a different time of the week, and it is still the same production line the two URC clubs are feeding.

Friday is Toulon under the lights. Saturday is Sale at 1pm, 30 years after a Glasgow side that had just beaten Newbridge were told the next job was Sale on the Wednesday. The league table will wait until 23 October. New Zealand will not.