WHATEVER is said of Edinburgh hooker Neil Cochrane when he retires from the game, he will never be accused of being conventional. Indeed, right to the end, he is doing things his way.

The 34-year-old has his hopes pinned on bowing out with an 1872 Cup winners medal, assuming he is part of the Edinburgh squad for the third leg of this season’s inter-city contest.

It would be a fitting conclusion for Cochrane. However, even a handful of years ago, this wasn’t the retirement party the former flanker turned hooker, had envisaged.

“I’d captained the Scotland Under-21s and off the back of that I was offered a full-time contract at Edinburgh,” Cochrane reflected. “From a financial point of view, it didn’t make any sense. It was a full-time contract for £6000. So, it was a no brainer for me to move down to the Championship. It was a bigger shop window and a bigger platform for me to pursue my career as a professional.

“I suppose the route I went is not the traditional route. But I have seen plenty of players who have started off at Premiership academies, who have filtered down in to the Championship, and they’ve been lost and ended up giving up rugby. There is no right or wrong route to take.

“If you have the motivation and the drive to get there, and you can prove your worth, then I think it’s doable for anybody.”

However, Cochrane’s career was transformed when he dropped from seven to two on the team sheet.

“I had three years at Rotherham, three at Doncaster, two at Bedford and one at Wasps. But Bedford [aged 27] was where I made the positional switch. I was given the opportunity to do it at Rotherham, and actually played the last three games of the season at hooker. But, being young, naive and probably a bit stubborn, I chose to stick it out at 7, and I thought I could make it as a seven.

“However, ultimately the back row is a new animal. It’s a different animal now, where they’re looking for size, and height and another line-out option – unless you are like Hamish Watson or John Hardie who are just phenomenal athletes.

“It’s probably a position that came very natural to me. The throwing aspect, has come fairly natural to me, my height probably helps me in the scrum. So, I felt I adapted to it pretty well when I made the change.”

Cochrane made it into Gregor Townsend’s extended pre-Six Nations squad this season, another chapter in his tale of the unexpected, and a pretty mesmeric rise in elite rugby, starting with that call from Wasps.

“It was quite daunting, going in to an environment like Wasps, where you have Andy Goode, Christian Wade, James Haskell, players, who playing in the Championship, you were never exposed to. You turn up at training, and it just reiterated my drive to prove my worth.

“Unfortunately, after I played nine games for them, I picked up an injury in the November, when I felt I was really beginning to make strides, and offered a two-year deal off the back of that.

“It gives you a bit of self-belief, when you are approached by a club like Wasps, the stature, the brand, the business, it’s more than just a club in a town or a city. It definitely rejuvenated me.

“But four years ago when I got the call to come up to Edinburgh, it was always a life-long ambition. When I first moved to England, if you had said to me you will finish your career at Edinburgh, I would never have believed you.

“It was certainly a path I never thought I would ever get on to. In my final season at Bedford, I was actually going to stop playing professional rugby, because at that time I thought I should focus on my next career,” says Cochrane, who is already working on his day off with a commercial building surveying company within Edinburgh. Off the back of that he has been offered a position within the company.

“But when Wasps came in, it gave me a bit more rejuvenation and enthusiasm, and it has just gone from strength to strength. I had a good opportunity to stay at Wasps for a further two years, but when Edinburgh came knocking with a two-year offer, it was too good to turn down.”

Now a cup decider, rather than a final, beckons at Murrayfield for Cochrane.

“Albeit on selection, hopefully I’ll be a part of the team next weekend. It would be a great day for me if we went on to win the 1872 Cup, and would be a lasting memory for me, should we win it.

“We just have to concentrate on ourselves, albeit you’ve got the bragging rights of Scottish rugby. We’re certainly going to give it our best shot. We have confidence going in to the game after a fairly good season.

“Cockers [coach Richard Cockerill] has come in and he’s made a lot of changes, and the squad is starting to reap the rewards off that and it would be a great send off to play my final game at BT Murrayfield, against Glasgow –and beating them.”