As Gordon Brown was still in Downing Street when Edinburgh had last won the 1872 Cup, their first problem on taking possession of the thing at BT Murrayfield on Friday evening was to track down the keys to a trophy cabinet that had been standing quietly in the corner for the previous five years.

 

Yet, as glad as they must have been to get their hands on the silverware after beating Glasgow 20-8, the capital side will surely place higher value on the four Guinness PRO12 points they harvested as well. There were upsets all over the place in the first round of games of the new year, a pattern that meant Edinburgh started and finished the weekend in eighth place in the table. But there can be no question now that Alan Solomons' side are capable of kicking on and upwards and into the top six to claim an automatic European Champions Cup slot.

It is a remarkable turnaround for a club that suffered a 62-13 hammering at the hands of Ospreys barely three months earlier. That tanking at the Liberty Stadium was an utter humiliation for Edinburgh, and they were not hugely better when they were beaten 30-0 by Ulster a fortnight later, but the pattern since has been one of steady, if not entirely uninterrupted, progress. Since the start of December they have lost just one of five competitive games.

All very heartening, but all very similar to what happened around the same time last season as well. Back then, Edinburgh notched notable wins against Gloucester and Leinster and then pushed Glasgow all the way in the inter-city derby at Murrayfield. But it was a false dawn for the club, which quickly returned to the trough it had been stuck in earlier in the campaign.

For their part, Glasgow also seemed to suffer a winter slump a year ago. They were beaten at home by Newport Gwent Dragons and then lost back-to-back Heineken Cup fixtures against Cardiff Blues. But those games turned out to be mid-season blips, for they closed out the season with the nine-straight PRO12 wins that won them their place in the final.

Yet even if the celebrations of Edinburgh fans and the despair of their Glasgow counterparts are both a little premature, there are solid grounds for believing that the gap between the two sides really has shrunk in recent weeks. On a man-to-man basis, I'm not sure that all that much has changed - although Tim Visser certainly thrust himself back into the Test spotlight with his two tries - but it is possible to sense a growing collective spirit about Edinburgh at the moment, and that is a far more significant development than individual form.

It is worth recalling the sequence of events that brought Solomons to the club as head coach almost 18 months ago. Edinburgh, frankly, were in a mess, having just finished the 2012-13 season in 10th place in the PRO12 table. While Glasgow surged ahead, the men from the east delivered performances that were embarrassing to watch, such was their spinelessness and lack of fight. "There is not that team ethic," said SRU chief executive Mark Dodson in a damning critique of the spirit within their dressing room.

It was certainly there last Friday, though. Visser piled on the points, but it was in the grit, grunt and sheer determination of their forwards that Edinburgh had the winning of the match. They had come off second-best in the previous weekend's 20-16 clash at Scotstoun, and they were determined not to let it happen again. Rugby offers few better measures of the underlying character of a side.

Is this just swings and roundabouts? Has the Scottish power balance tipped from west to east, as once it swung the other way? You have to hope not, for it would be far healthier all round if both teams were strengthened by the rivalry, that each used the successes of the other as a spur for themselves.

For the past few seasons, the disparity between Glasgow and Edinburgh has been profoundly unhealthy for Scotland's elite game. When you have only two professional sides, it is absolutely essential that they should be pushing each other on. I disagree completely with the suggestion that there should be a third game between the teams this season to 'settle' matters - are Edinburgh meant to hand back the trophy they have just won? - but competitiveness between the sides is crucial.

That, in essence, is what has happened in Irish rugby, and especially between Munster and Leinster, since the turn of the century. Yes, you can talk about a golden generation of players, but those players became all the better for driving each other on, conquering Europe as they did so. And that is the level to which Scotland's sides should aspire.