"Our league position hasn't changed, so something has got to change." Matt Scott was in a realistic frame of mind as he assessed another disappointing finish to his last game in his last season before moving on.

It left the team ninth in the Guinness PRO12, their worst finish since Alan Solomons took over as head coach, and means that both their main targets for the season – top six in the league and quarter finals or beyond in the European Challenge Cup – have both been missed.

Scott was right; things do have to change. While a number of individual statistics are showing a steady improvement, their league position, the only one that really matters, is as bad as it has been since the time Mark Dodson, the Scottish Rugby Union chief executive, described the club as a "basket case".

One change that is definitely happening will come when the club announce tomorrow they are going to pilot an experiment with playing home games at Myreside, the Watsonians home ground which was also where they played early in their time as a professional outfit.

The official announcement is not until tomorrow, so details are sketchy at the moment, though it appears they have agreed to play six games at the club ground, but not starting until January. It looks as though keeping BT Murrayfield clear for the three home RBS Six Nations Championship matches on next season's rota is as much of a factor as any boost it might give the Edinburgh players.

It should help even though Edinburgh's home record is too bad – the defeat by Cardiff was only their third at Murrayfield this season, exactly mirroring the statistic which shows they won only three away matches, including the one against Glasgow that ended out being played at Murrayfield.

What a smaller ground should achieve is to raise the excitement level. In the Cardiff game, even when they were playing well in the first half – rattling in three tries and looking as though they were about to cruise to the crucial bonus point win that might have given them a chance of a top-six finish – there was not much noise or sense of excitement coming from the empty stands at Murrayfield.

If Glasgow Warriors had been in the same position with their raucous fans roaring the place down, they would not have dared drop away in the second half in the catastrophic manner Edinburgh did. Myreside can only help on that front.

What was really frustrating about the final game, however, was the way the Edinburgh side showed the best and the worst of how they could play. They put real pressure on the Cardiff line for the first 40 minutes as they kept hold of the ball and reaped the reward. Then they underwent a complete reverse as they spent most of the second half inside their own 22, defending grimly.

"We had a great first half and played some good attacking stuff but then we just didn't have the ball in their half often enough," was Scott's analysis. "That was down to penalties at the breakdown and errors. Unfortunately we couldn't build the same momentum.

"In the first half we played some good rugby, which shows what we can do when we play well but, again, we didn't play for 80 minutes. That's extremely frustrating. It's a sad moment playing with these guys for the last time but it was more just frustration in the end."

Scott had signed off his Edinburgh career with the second of the club's tries, finishing off a half break by Damien Hoyland, and he nearly got a second with a neat chip through only for teammate Tom Brown to nip in and pinch the score from under his nose. Earlier Cornell Du Preez at No8 had provided the offload for Hamish Watson, his back row colleague, to get the team under way.

That was the perfect platform to push on for a fourth try and though results elsewhere meant they would still have finished outside the top six, at least a seventh-place finish would have given them a base for next season.

Instead, they started messing about in the middle of the field, handed possession over to Cardiff and barely saw the ball again before the visitors had added to Ray Lee-Lo's first half try with two more through Cam Dolan and Garyn Smith. Gareth Anscombe converted all his team's scores while Jason Tovey hit the post twice with conversion attempts and at the end those four points were all that divided the teams.

"There wasn't much between ninth and sixth this year and we're certainly closer to the play-offs than we ever have been. I suppose in that way we're moving forwards," added Scott. "It's just a shame that we gave ourselves too much to do in the last couple of weeks of the season.

"The club is stronger than when Alan first came in for sure. I think he's done a tremendous job and turned us around from where we were. I think we're a tough team to beat now but there is still some work to go."

Edinburgh: Tries: Hoyland (16), Scott (19), Brown (38). Con: Tovey.

Cardiff Blues: Try: Lee-Lo (30), Dolan (62), Smith (65). Cons: Anscombe. 3 Scoring sequence (Edinburgh first): 5-0, 12-0, 12-7, 17-7 (half time), 17-14, 17-21,

Edinburgh: D Fife; D Hoyland, M Scott, A Strauss, T Brown; J Tovey, S Kennedy (S Hidalgo-Clyne, 60); R Sutherland (A Dell, 60), S Mcinally (C) (N Cochrane, 68), WP Nel (J Andress, 55), A Bresler (A Toolis, 55), B Toolis, N Manu, H Watson (M Bradbury, 49), C Du Preez.

Cardiff Blues: D Fish; A Summerhill (G Evans, 41), G Smith, R Lee-Lo, T James (J Evans, 42-48); G Anscombe, L Williams; G Jenkins (C), M Rees (K Dacey, 47), T Filise (S Andrews, 57), C Dolan (M Cook, 74), J Down (L Reed, 72), J Turnbull, E Jenkins, J Navidi.

Referee: J Lacey (Ireland)

Attendance: 4,962