Jamie Ritchie targeting top-four finish for Edinburgh in United Rugby Championship

​The capital club, beaten 36-30 in South Africa at the weekend, are currently ninth in the United Rugby Championship table, on 34 points from 13 fixtures, with five left to play, and Ritchie reckons they’re still in with a chance of bridging the nine-point gap to the top four.

They need a top-eight finish to make it to the play-offs, and they’re only one point off that at the moment, but they’re targeting a spot in the top four to secure a home tie in the quarter-finals.

“Obviously we’d prefer to be in the mix in both but I think it makes our plan ahead pretty clear,” said the 27-year-old, a product of St Andrews’ Madras club.

“We know what we need to do to be where we want to be, so that’s the silver lining of us being out of Europe.

“We firmly believe we can win all our games in the run-in.

“I don’t think that is an unattainable goal, but the teams below us are fighting for something as well, so we certainly know there are no easy games in there.”

Head coach Sean Everitt’s side’s next three matches are against teams beneath them in the table, beginning with their first home game at the capital’s Hive Stadium since the beginning of last month versus Llanelli’s Scarlets this Saturday, with kick-off at 7.35pm.

That’s followed by a trip to Cardiff the Saturday after; home games against basement side Zebre Parma and fourth-placed Munster on Fridays, May 10 and 17, respectively, concluding their pre-play-off season with a flight to Italy to take on Benetton on Saturday, June 1.

Edinburgh are one of three teams on 34 points from 13 matches, along with tenth-placed Connacht and Johannesburg’s Lions, in 11th place, and Swansea’s seventh-placed Ospreys and eighth-placed Ulster are both only a single point better off.

Assessing the tightness of mid-table in the championship, former Scotland captain Ritchie said: “Five wins gets us in the top four, which is where we want to be, with a home quarter-final, but, I think we need to just keep improving like we have been doing and then put away these opportunities we have been creating.

“I don’t think we’re a million miles away. We’re showing a little bit of improvement every game.

“That middle part of the league is so close that it changes from one week to the next.

“There is one point between us and eighth at the moment, so it's not a huge concern.

“We’re confident with the run-in that we’ve got that we can put some points on the board and climb all the way up that log.

"It would be a bit worrying if it wasn’t in our own hands.

“We’ve got massive opportunities in all these games, and we’ve shown in the past that we can beat the teams that we're up against.”