EDINBURGH put themselves in pole position for a spot in the European Challenge Cup quarter-finals when they produced their best away performance of the season at the Twickenham Stoop yesterday.

The afternoon was soured only slightly by the shipping a couple of late tries that allowed Harlequins to claim a losing bonus point, but the other downside was that WP Nel, the Scotland tighthead prop who was returning from three months out with a neck injury, lasted only 27 minutes before he went into a tackle on Quins lock George Merrick and received a blow to the head.

He missed the rest of the game and will go through the usual head injury protocols, but has to be a doubt for the Pool 5 match against Timisoara on Friday, leaving Scotland head coach Vern Cotter with a tricky decision on whether to risk him in national colours at the Six Nations after less than half-an-hour’s game time.

Yesterday’s game was one of patience. There was a lot of tactical play, with bursts of brilliance from the Scots that was enough to pull them clear – a complete contrast to the earlier game at Murrayfield, which Edinburgh won by a single point with 11 tries shared between the teams. Both sides had absorbed the lessons and started with a much more cautious app- roach, with plenty of kicks to try to establish a tactical advantage.

To start with, that seemed to work in Harlequins’ favour as they dominated the early exchanges and brought the best out of the Edinburgh defence as they held off two attempts at driving mauls.

In the end, the early scoring was restricted to a penalty apiece for Duncan Weir for the Scots and Tim Swiel for the English. There were, however, signs that when Edinburgh got the ball they were capable of doing some damage.

In the end, it paid off. Full-back Blair Kinghorn making a threatening break down the wing with support inside from Chris Dean, the centre. They were stopped short but back-up arrived quickly with Ross Ford driving at the line and No 8 Cornell Du Preez keeping the move alive with an outrageous off-load out the back. They worked the ball back into midfield where Fraser McKenzie, preferred to Grant Gilchrist at lock, caught the Quins defence by surprise with a sidestep that took him through on a canter to the line for the opening try.

There were appeals for a penalty try a few minutes later when Edin-burgh wing Damien Hoyland cut free from the halfway line and his pass to the support inside was slapped down. It was eventually collected by Dean, and Weir was stopped only inches short.

Harlequins flanker James Chisholm was sin-binned for slowing the ball down at the resulting ruck but Edinburgh made a mess of the line-out. Weir eventually edged his side further ahead with a long-range penalty but it was poor reward for a period of attacking play that promised so much more, and Edinburgh paid the price when Swiel kicked his second penalty. Harlequins were determined to step up the pace after the break, but go nowhere when they ran into an Edinburgh defence determined to tackle everything that moved.

After weathering the storm, Duncan Hodge’s side broke the siege and conjured up a couple of scoring chances. The first went abegging when Sean Kennedy’s solo break ended with him chipping over the goal line and Danny Care, the home captain, got back to beat Phil Burleigh to the ball.

But Edinburgh were in no mood to let go their grip of the match. They found the space for Du Preez to burst through the middle and find Hamish Watson in support. The flanker, who had had a magnificent all-round game, showed his pace to take the ball on to the 22 and then got it away to prop Allan Dell who caught the rest of the defence by surprise as he raced away for the try.

A second chip through, this time by Burleigh, almost brought a try for Viliame Mata but when Quins killed the ball at a ruck from the attacking position, Weir kicked the points to pull his side three scores clear. They needed every one of them as home forward replacements Mat Luamanu and Joe Gray, two went over in the final two minutes to earn the losing bonus point.