Edinburgh were further rewarded for their historic Heineken Cup bid yesterday when nine of their players, including Test debutant Lee Jones, pictured, were named in Scotland's match 22 for Saturday's Calcutta Cup meeting with England.
Dave Denton, who has made just one previous Test appearance in a World Cup warm-up match, and Ross Rennie will also start an RBS 6 Nations Championship match for the first time while Greig Laidlaw, their club captain, also looks set to take his tournament bow after being listed on the bench.
In all, there are eight changes to the team that was beaten when the same opponents ended Scotland's World Cup bid earlier this season, only three of them enforced, with Chris Paterson having retired while Ruaridh Jackson and Joe Ansbro are injured. They are respectively replaced by Rory Lamont, Dan Parks and Nick De Luca while the other two recalled to the starting line-up are lock Jim Hamilton and scrum-half Chris Cusiter.
In explaining Jones' inclusion, Andy Robinson, Scotland's head coach, might as easily have been outlining why there has been a shift of emphasis along the M8 with Glasgow Warriors having previously dominated his selections.
"Lee has been playing well and has been scoring tries," he said. "I watched him against Cardiff and I liked his work-rate off the ball, while the work he did against London Irish away from home was very good and that's what you're looking for."
Perhaps the most controversial selection was the inclusion of the most senior figure in the side since Parks has never managed to shake off the critics who believe his involvement automatically limits Scotland's playing style but Robinson rebuffed that notion.
"You think about the way we played against Wales two years ago when everybody said we were going to kick the ball. You think about the way Glasgow played against Toulouse two years ago when they ran Toulouse off the field and won. Dan was the fly-half then," he noted.
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