After his case for leading Scotland into action on his next appearance at Murrayfield was massively strengthened on Saturday, Kelly Brown demonstrated the diplomatic skills that may be a considerable asset in the job.

The former Border Reivers and Glasgow Warriors flanker did not deny taking considerable satisfaction from playing a part in the English side's demolition of a team whose bid to return to the Heineken Cup's knockout stages looked to have fallen at the first hurdle. However, he sought to claim it had not been easy for him and his team-mates, and sidestepped the matter of how worrying this was in terms of Scotland's prospects when the autumn Tests get under way a month hence.

"That's a good question - a very good question," he replied.

Brown has inspiringly battled to overcome being a stammerer, a consequence of which is that there are often slight, considered pauses between phrases and sentences, but the suspicion was that this time he was mulling over how best to phrase the response for different reasons.

"Eh - right now I'm just focused on Saracens, you know, and, okay, there's a few guys in the Edinburgh side that will be in the Scotland side, but right now I'm just focused on us and if I'm lucky enough to get in the Scottish squad that is when I'll focus on that."

Brown can be a good deal more confident of inclusion than most of those from the home dressing. That includes Ross Ford, who took over the Scotland captaincy role that Brown had been asked to fill earlier this year before being injured, but who looked as if he had never met the men to whom he was trying to throw the ball in the lineout. Not that the hooker was by any means alone in having a woeful afternoon.

That a scoreline of "Edinburgh 0, Saracens 33" represented wishful thinking on behalf of the scoreboard operator for a full two minutes after Saracens had registered their bonus-point fourth try 68 minutes in, said all that needed to be about this shameful performance. The actual difference at the time was 0-38 and when Charlie Hodgson repeated his feat from this year's Calcutta Cup match at the same venue by a scoring a charge-down try Saracens had, in 75 minutes, doubled their season's try haul, having registered just five in six English Premiership matches.

It was, by any standards, an utterly inexcusable performance with not even the loss at half-time, through injury, of Greig Laidlaw and Tim Visser, their two main points contributors of the past year, offering any sort of mitigation.

Afterwards Michael Bradley, Edinburgh's head coach, was unable to say exactly when Laidlaw had suffered the shoulder injury which forced his departure, but it must have at least partly explained his utterly uncharacteristic first-half performance. The captain threw several errant passes, coughed up possession and missed touch with a crucial penalty, not to mention missing his only shot at goal – admittedly from the limit of his range.

While it has never been absolutely clear whether Bradley's apparent unease with the media is down to nervousness or contempt, on Saturday it was surely magnified by a combination of rage and embarrassment. "More than a bit, I'm afraid," he said, when asked if he felt embarrassed. "I don't think we could potentially have played any worse. All aspects of our game didn't function."

He was clearly bewildered by the way that, confronted with the Saracens blitz defence, Edinburgh tried to run and handle their way out of their own half, but thought the right time to put foot to ball had arrived on more than one of the very few occasions they got into the opposition's 22.

Bradley knows that last season, having generated a debate as to whether the real Edinburgh was that which reached the Heineken Cup semis or the one that lost the 1872 Challenge Cup to Glasgow, in finishing second bottom of the Pro12 his men have validated those who considered their European effort a fluke.

The signs were all there of how this would go even before Joel Tomkins made an overlap count to score the first try in 13 minutes and Northampton had to be little more than efficient in building their 16-0 first-half lead. Hodgson, who was to hit the target with seven of eight kicks, registered the rest of the half's points as well as an early second-half penalty and the contest was over before replacement Owen Farrell scored with his first touch, 59 minutes in.

There was plenty of talk from the Edinburgh management and players about having let people down. We will find out in the next week whether those words count or were merely the all-too familiar, meaningless Murrayfield apologies.