Edinburgh's Dave Denton on the way up

Shontayne Hape had certainly spotted Denton's potential when London Irish took on Edinburgh at the Madejski Stadium last month. Hape hit Denton high, hard and dangerously in a tackle that ended the Scot's involvement in the game, copping a four-week ban for his act after the intervention of the citing commissioner. Denton was robbed of his senses by the hit, but he had better get used to that level of attention if he carries on playing like he has.

It is not just Denton's unruly blond thatch that brings memories of John Jeffrey to mind. Denton, like Jeffrey, can switch easily between No 8 and the blindside flank, and can even do a shift in the second row, as Jeffrey occasionally did, if asked. But he also has that same barometer persona: if Denton is popping up here, there and everywhere, crashing through challenges and wiping opponents in the tackle, you hardly need to look at the scoreboard to know Edinburgh must be doing rather well.

In the Scottish rugby brat pack, he is distinguished by that solitary international appearance – as a replacement against Ireland last August – and with a little more luck he could easily have made the cut to be part of the Scotland Rugby World Cup squad too. It would, admittedly, have been a major surprise if he had gone, given the competition he was up against in his favoured positions, but his determination finds measure in the fact he was still sore about missing out.

"It was tough," he said of the day he found out that he was not New Zealand-bound. "I was happy after that first cap, but when the squad was announced I was really disappointed, as anyone would be. But I'm young, and my next target is the Six Nations. I knew I'd have to play well for Edinburgh and I think I've done that."

Scotland coach Andy Robinson name-checked Denton last week when he talked of the bubble of talented players now coming through, and it's a safe bet that he will keep a close eye on the 6ft 5in forward over the next few weeks as four Heineken Cup matches and back-to-back Edinburgh-Glasgow derbies provide Scottish players with their most challenging and relentlessly intense period of the domestic season.

Robinson likes to see how players go outside their comfort zone. In a sense, Denton is there already, having made the decision to move from his native Zimbabwe in search of a professional rugby career in Scotland, the land of his mother's birth. His roots here are deep. His grandfather was chief executive of the Clydesdale Bank, while his uncle, Johnnie Cole-Hamilton, is a senior figure in the R&A championships administration.

If that ancestry suggests a degree of privilege in his background, there is nothing aloof about the way he plays the game. Denton rolls up his sleeves and gets stuck into the chores with heartwarming enthusiasm and an alertness to his surroundings that had typical reward at Murrayfield on Friday evening when he pounced on an error in the opposition defence and crashed through for the opening try of Edinburgh's 50-10 demolition of Aironi.

His upbringing in Zimbabwe taught him how to deal with adversity as well. Denton is fiercely proud of his home country, but he concedes that it did throw up a few challenges in his early teenage years.

"It is made to look worse than it is on the news," he said. "It's a wonderful country to live in, and a very easy life. It's very relaxed, very laid back.

"There was a stage when things were pretty bad, but it seems to have calmed down now. There's still a bit of trouble on the farms – my uncle has trouble now and then – but it's nothing like it used to be. It's mostly veterans and people who have been given power by [President Robert] Mugabe, but it has certainly calmed down now.

"I remember those times. It was pretty wild. I would be away at school in South Africa for two or three months and when I came back there were four zeroes added to the price of everything. If you owned a business you would be changing your prices by the hour. It was really tough to keep on top of that."

Denton moved to South Africa to attend school and his all-round sporting talents – he was a powerful swimmer and water polo player – were spotted there as well. However, a tightening of international eligibility rules made it increasingly unlikely that he could ever represent that country in sport – even Tendai Mtawarira, the mighty Zimbabwe-born prop, was recently forced to take South African citizenship in order to carry on playing for the Springboks – so Denton's thoughts turned north.

The red carpet was not exactly rolled out. Some pettifogging club registration rules meant he spent his first few months here turning out for Edinburgh Accies second XV, a few notches below where he should have been. Over time, though, things became easier, and as his rugby commitments grew he was obliged to abandon the economics degree that had been one of the reasons he came to Scotland in the first place.

He has kept his finger on the fast-forward button since. Robbed of the chance to play in Edinburgh's astonishing 48-47 Heineken Cup win over Racing Metro – he took a couple of weeks to shake off the symptoms of concussion that resulted from Hape's tackle – Denton is especially eager to make a big impression when his side return to action in the tournament at Cardiff on Friday evening. He probably counts as a Test outsider at the moment, but the next six weeks could easily change that.

Denton said: "Our league game against Cardiff was our first of the season and there's no question it was a tough one [Edinburgh lost 38-15]. They are a good side but we're hitting a vein of form at the moment and are playing well. Our attack is outstanding and if we can sort out a few defensive issues we're going to be a real problem for teams."