The Scotland captain was excluded from the Edinburgh squad after the scrum-half was called up for the tour to South Africa as a replacement for Tomas O’Leary.

O’Leary was injured on Celtic League duty for Munster and Edinburgh coach Andy Robinson took no chances with his star man as Greig Laidlaw was handed the No. 9 shirt.

Two Scotland backs were in Scotland’s midfield, though, and it was their partnership which was key to Edinburgh’s success in the final league game to be played at the Arm’s Park.

Dumfries-born centre Nick De Luca crossed for two tries with the others coming from his Test colleague Ben Cairns, Scotland stand-off Phil Godman and a penalty try.

Trailing 14-3 at half-time, Robinson’s men notched five second-half tries to run out 36-14 victors over the defeated European Cup semi-finalists.

The win also set a new all-time Edinburgh record for the amount of successive wins - six - and was helped with 11 points from the boot of Chris Paterson, who kept Hugo Southwell out of the starting line-up on his last game before leaving for Stade Francais next season.