THE hard work has been done, both on and off the pitch. Edinburgh’s first match at Myreside is approaching a sell-out, and the team themselves are closing in on a home quarter-final in the Challenge Cup. The stage is set for an evening of modest but well-deserved celebration.

Duncan Hodge’s squad will need to apply themselves professionally against Timisoara Saracens in this final pool match, but they should win with something to spare. They did exactly that against the same opponents in Romania back in October, getting their cup campaign off to a flying start with a 59-17 victory. Since then they have beaten Stade Francais at home, lost narrowly in Paris, and defeated Harlequins home and away.

Victory at The Stoop last week guaranteed that any sort of win this evening will be enough for them to finish top of Pool Five. A bonus-point win, and they will qualify as one of the top four seeds, meaning a home quarter-final - back at Murrayfield, by the way, as the match schedule for Myreside has already been finalised, and the crowd for the last-eight tie should easily outstrip the 5,500 capacity of the Watsonians ground.

So, while his team’s lowly position in the PRO12 remains a cause for chronic concern, when it comes to Europe there is a lot for Hodge to be pleased about. The build-up to this first match at the team’s new ground could hardly have gone better, and in any case this is a sort of homecoming for the former Scotland stand-off, who turned out regularly at Myreside for Watsonians and then Edinburgh around the turn of the century.

“We played against Ulster there when they won [the Heineken Cup] in ’99 and there were 6-7,000 there,” Hodge recalled yesterday. “I’ve played against Melrose when there were maybe 5,000 there.

“The stands will be up close to the pitch, and there’s no running track, so I think it’ll be great. The fact that we might have something to celebrate if we win this game is an extra incentive. What we’re thinking about is our performance and maintaining our standards of the past couple of weeks – if we get that right we can take it from there. “If the Edinburgh fans finish work at five, get a pint in town and then get one when they’re here so that they loosen up and make lots of noise, it does translate onto the players and give you a lift. The more noise the better.

“Everyone’s been great and we’re really looking forward to it. Until we see the crowd and run out we won’t know what it’s like. I’ve played out there in front of decent crowds, and Edinburgh last played here against the Ospreys two years ago, but a lot of that team have moved on. We just don’t know how moving grounds will affect us – hopefully it’ll be really intimidating with the crowd right there and getting behind us, but at the moment that’s all an unknown.”

Not entirely unknown, surely. It might be impossible to calculate precisely how big a boost Edinburgh will receive from the move - and a couple of run-of-the-mill league games near the end of the season are likely to generate a whole lot less excitement than tonight’s game has done - but even the very fact of getting away from Murrayfield has had a tangible effect on morale. Myreside feels like home to the players in a way that the national stadium has never done.

With the six-day turnaround from the Harlequins match in mind, Hodge has made half a dozen changes to his starting line-up for this evening’s game, two in the backs and four up front. Michael Allen comes in at outside centre and Nathan Fowles starts at scrum-half, while in the pack Neil Cochrane, Simon Berghan, Grant Gilchrist and Jamie Ritchie all return.

Cochrane captains the team on his 50th appearance, and Berghan stands in for the injured Willem Nel. There was still no news yesterday about the medical assessment of the Scotland tighthead prop, who suffered a recurrence against Harlequins of the neck strain that had kept him out for a couple of months.

Gilchrist partners Ben Toolis in the second row. Ritchie is at openside flanker alongside Cornell du Preez, who was named this week in Vern Cotter’s Scotland squad for the Six Nations Championship, and Magnus Bradbury, who was not. That omission came as a blow to Bradbury, who made his international debut in the Autumn Tests, but Hodge is confident that any disappointment will manifest itself in the right way.

“It’s been a tough couple of days for Maggie,” he said. “These things happen to us all: people have highs and lows.

“Maggie’s got his head screwed on - he’s just got to work away and take the feedback on board. He’s a professional guy, he’s got high standards, and I’m sure he’ll react.”

Edinburgh (v Timisoara at Myreside, tonight, 7.35pm): B Kinghorn; D Hoyland, M Allen, C Dean, T Brown; D Weir, N Fowles; A Dell, N Cochrane, S Berghan, B Toolis, G Gilchrist, M Bradbury, J Ritchie, C du Preez. Substitutes: S McInally, J Cosgrove, M McCallum, L Carmichael, V Mata, S Hidalgo-Clyne, J Tovey, R Scholes.

Timisoara Saracens: C Fercu; M Lemnaru, B Sefanaia, J Umaga, S Shennan; J Rose, V Calafeteanu; E Aholelei, A Radoi, H Pungea , V Popirlan, M Drenceanu, D Ianus, D Lazar, V Rus. Substitutes: E Capatana, S Halalilo, S Maris , I Muresan, M Gorcioaia, F Popa, G Conache, T Manumua.