EDINBURGH could hardly have hoped for a happier start to life in their new home as they completed their Challenge Cup pool campaign with a comfortable victory over Timisoara Saracens. Having won with equal ease in the first match in Romania they were never likely to be under pressure at Myreside, and they did not disappoint a near-capacity crowd of over 5,000.

The bonus-point win, wrapped up before half-time, meant Edinburgh will finish top of Pool Five and go through to a home quarter-final. They will now be seeded second or third in the draw for the last eight, and must await the results of the other pool games before finding out who qualifies sixth or seventh and meets them in the next round. The quarter-final will be at Murrayfield on the weekend beginning 30 March.

“Job done,” Edinburgh coach Duncan Hodge said. “It was a bit disjointed, specially in the second half.

“It was good to get four tries before half-time. We played well in bits in the first half - there were just a couple of errors in attack and we gave the ball away too cheaply.”

One concerning moment was the head knock that led to Allan Dell leaving the pitch in the first half. It was announced that the loosehead prop had gone off for a head-injury assessment, and soon confirmed he would not be returning.

With Alasdair Dickinson already out of at least part of the Six Nations, Scotland coach Vern Cotter could do without losing a second loosehead. Yesterday’s news that WP Nel, the first-choice tighthead, will miss the entire Championship has heightened the feeling that the national pack might be just one more injury away from a real crisis.

Hodge, however, sought to allay such concerns. “I don’t think so,” he said when asked if Dell had failed an HIA. “I think he’s just taken a bit of a bang.”

Edinburgh had to work hard to get the upper hand early on, and it took them a dozen minutes to post the first score, a well-executed lineout drive from a Duncan Weir penalty which was finished off by hooker and captain for the night Neil Cochrane. The stand-off converted, and the full score settled the home team into playing in a more measured fashion than they had shown in the first frantic exchanges.

Dell went off towards the end of the first quarter, but Jack Cosgrove slotted in well, and Edinburgh soon doubled their lead. One overlap on the right was snuffed out by the Romanian defence, but the attack carried on, and a few phases later Tom Brown made a half-break then supplied the scoring pass for Cornell du Preez.

The third try came before half an hour had been played, with Blair Kinghorn seizing on a loose pass in midfield to run 40 metres and touch down behind the posts. Weir’s third successful kick took the score to 21-0, and the only question after that was not whether Edinburgh would get the bonus point, but when. The answer was two minutes before half-time, when Michael Allen ran on to a kick ahead and won the race for the loose ball. Weir was on target once more, and Edinburgh went in at the break knowing they had already done the job they had set out to do .

Timisoara got off the mark with a penalty from scrum-half Valentin Calafeteanu two minutes into the second half, but Edinburgh soon got back on top, and try No 5 came in the 50th minute. A penalty kicked to touch again gave the platform for the score, and it was again Cochrane who got the credit for finishing off the lineout drive. Weir added the two points, then both scorers were among a number of Edinburgh players to be substituted as Hodge gave his bench a run-out.

Sam Hidalgo-Clyne was one of the replacements who came on at that point, but he also had to go off a minute later after being yellow-carded for not retreating 10 metres at a penalty. With the scrum-half still in the bin, Saracens also had a man yellow-carded, Marian Drenceanu paying the penalty for collapsing a maul.

As space opened up, Jason Tovey sprinted through a gap in the defence to claim his team’s sixth try, and took the conversion himself. Damien Hoyland made it seven shortly thereafter, again taking advantage of a porous defence, and Tovey’s conversion took Edinburgh’s tally to just a point shy of the half century.

Scorers: Edinburgh: Tries: Cochrane 2, Du Preez, Kinghorn, Allen, Tovey, Hoyland. Cons: Weir 5, Tovey 2.

Timisoara: Pen: Calafeteanu.

Edinburgh: B Kinghorn (R Scholes 51); D Hoyland, M Allen, C Dean, T Brown; D Weir (J Tovey 51), N Fowles (S Hidalgo-Clyne 51); A Dell (J Cosgrove 18), N Cochrane (S McInally 51), S Berghan (M McCallum 63), B Toolis (L Carmichael 56), G Gilchrist, M Bradbury, J Ritchie, C du Preez (V Mata 56).

Timisoara Saracens: C Fercu; M Lemnaru, B Sefanaia (T Manumau 60), J Umaga (F Popa 12), S Shennan; J Rose, V Calafeteanu (G Conache 66); E Aholelei (S Halalilo 61), A Radoi (E Capatana 50), H Pungea , V Popirlan, M Drenceanu (I Muresan 28), D Ianus, D Lazar, V Rus (M Gorcioaia 35). Unused substitute: S Maris.

Referee: A Jones (Wales). Attendance: 5235.