Coordinates: 55°56′11″N 3°12′34″W / 55.9365°N 3.2095°W / 55.9365; -3.2095

Merchiston is a prosperous, mainly residential area in the south-west of Edinburgh, Scotland. The housing is primarily a mixture of large, late Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian villas – several of the latter by Edward Calvert – together with a smaller number of Victorian tenements and some relatively large, early-20th century villas. In recent years many of these villas have been subjected to development with blocks of flats being built in their once expansive gardens and the original houses themselves being divided into small numbers of flats.

A campus forming a major part of Edinburgh Napier University is in the area; it includes Merchiston Tower (or Castle), once the home of John Napier, 8th Laird of Merchiston and the inventor of logarithms. The university also uses a variety of other buildings in this and surrounding areas, such as former schools and churches, some of which would otherwise have been demolished or made into further flats. The tower was sold by the Honourable John Scott Napier, 14th Laird of Merchiston in 1914 to the Merchiston Castle School board who used it up until 1930 when the school moved to a new site at Colinton (whilst retaining the Merchiston Castle name).

Rob Moffat is a Scottish rugby union coach. He was the assistant coach at Edinburgh under Andy Robinson before taking over as head coach in 2009 and has been involved in coaching Scotland A, Glasgow and the Borders. On 31 January 2011 he was sacked by Edinburgh following a disappointing start to the season.

As a PE teacher and head of department at Galashiels Academy Moffat taught the likes of Gregor Townsend, John Collins, Chris Paterson and Geoff Cross.

He went on to take over from Jim Telfer as the Melrose coach in the early 1990s before becoming assistant coach at the Borders when the game turned professional in 1997. When that team was merged with Edinburgh he joined Glasgow before returning to the borders when the team was revived.

When it was again disbanded in 2007 Moffat moved to Edinburgh where he was assistant under Robinson and coached Scotland A to the final of the 2008 Churchill Cup where they were defeated by England Saxons.

In July 2009 Moffat took over the head coach roll at Edinburgh following Robinson's appointment as head coach of the national side. In his first season they finished 6th in the Magners League and failed to make progress from the pool stages of the Heineken Cup having won three of their matches.