A DIAMOND is just a lump of coal that did well under pressure.

Which presumably makes Ross Ford a kind of diamond. Certainly he has been under pressure and has come good, so what more do you want?

In the spring, your friends would probably have been ringing the men in white coats had you suggested not only that Ford would be back as the first-choice hooker in the Scotland team but that he would be throwing into the lineout with such accuracy that the side failed to win only one out of 37 lineouts over their three matches. Yet all that is true; it is a transformation in the caterpillar to butterfly class.

Now he is hoping that his club are going through a similar change. Like Ford, Edinburgh struggled in the spring; like Ford they have hit a vein of form in the autumn; unlike Ford they still have some way to go before anybody can be absolutely certain the change is lasting. Sometimes the pressure just produces more rock.

The Edinburgh background is impressive enough. Since beating Newport Gwent Dragons at the start of October, the capital side have gone on a run through the European Challenge Cup and beaten Cardiff Blues. Even the one defeat they did suffer in that period came with a built-in excuse in the form of an injury list which read like War and Peace.

All that good feeling is up for grabs today, however, when they head for Parma to play Zebre. The Italian side may be second from bottom of the Guinness PRO12, with only one win, but are a lot better than those bald statistics suggest, particularly now that they have half the Italian team back in their ranks.

"Zebre are tough to beat at home, they are a physical team," said Ford. "They target the breakdown, as all Italian teams do, but if we can play like the boys did last weekend against Cardiff Blues and tighten up a few things, we can get a good result. It's momentum and the feel-good factor. Winning makes life and training that bit easier."

Edinburgh are not entirely out of the woods yet. On the upside, there are a few of Ford's fellow Scotland internationalists on the return path, but needing games to shake off the rust of long-term injuries, while recent results have been impressive enough. On the downside, they still have 12 players unavailable, some of them out for months rather than weeks, and some of Edinburgh's wins are less impressive in real life than they look on paper since they came against weakened teams.

As Alan Solomons, the head coach, accepts the next few weeks could make or break the season. At the moment his side are still just about in touch with the battle for sixth spot and a place in next season's European Champions Cup but defeat would cast them at least 10 points, and likely even more, adrift.

With four wins in the last five games they have a chance to build some real momentum. The match against Zebre today, then two games against London Welsh, the English Premiership's whipping boys, a home game against Benetton Treviso, the league's bottom club, and Edinburgh could head into the 1872 Cup double header against Glasgow Warriors with eight wins in nine matches. It would he heady stuff for a side which ended last season with five defeats and conceded 62 points at the Ospreys a few weeks ago.

"Our strength in depth is a lot better, but the important thing is we have to focus on each individual performance," said Solomons. "We he to deliver a good performance against a team that are not easy at home. We don't look at expectations. There is the potential to build momentum but we have to look at it a game at a time.

"If we can perform well and get the result we have the potential to kick on and that is what we need to do. We need to make sure we don't look ahead. We need to treat this as another dangerous game."