COUNTING Scotland's blessings at the end of the Six Nations championship was not a task that was ever going to fill many hours of the day or impinge on more fruitful activities.

There were some decently combative passages here and there and we had confirmation of the class of players like Mark Bennett, Stuart Hogg and Jonny Gray, but five straight defeats and the low-note ending of a thrashing by Ireland did not exactly encourage positive reflection.

Yet in years to come it might well be seen that the most significant development of the 2015 tournament was the emergence of Sam Hidalgo-Clyne as a player of true Test calibre. Over the course of five appearances as a replacement, Hidalgo-Clyne accumulated just 51 minutes of rugby, but even in that limited time-frame he offered glimpses of the craft, guile and quick-wittedness required to thrive at this level.

The fact that 25 of those minutes were accumulated in that final game against Ireland suggests that coach Vern Cotter could be edging towards the conclusion that Hidalgo-Clyne could be his best option at scrum-half in the World Cup. It would be a bold move to promote the 21-year-old ahead of current captain Greig Laidlaw, but the newcomer's speed and sleight of hand bring a dimension to the stack that Scotland sorely needs.

Did the Six Nations offer a better moment of individual flair than Hidalgo-Clyne's sublimely disguised reverse pass to Tommy Seymour against Ireland? A cameo of course, the sort of thing that many players are happy to try on the training ground, but to back himself to pull it off in the cauldron of the Test environment was just another sign that Hidalgo-Clyne is in his element there.

Which is all rather ironic, actually, for it's not so long since Hidalgo-Clyne would scarcely have felt less comfortable in a No 9 jersey if he had augmented the outfit with a bubble skirt and thigh-length boots. A fly-half (and occasional full-back) throughout his schooldays, it was only when he came on to the radars of the Edinburgh and Scotland authorities that the powers-that-be began to push him towards the scrum-half role instead.

He wasn't for pushing at the outset. "I truthfully hated it when I first moved there," he says. "Seriously hated it." Technically, he struggled to pass the ball off the ground, but he also felt stifled in the new position.

"I was that used to being a 10," he explains. "At 10 you see everything in front of you whereas as a scrum-half you see nothing because it's all behind you. It's easy as a 10 because you dictate, but as a 9 you have to listen and that was something I wasn't used to at the start.

"It was a collective thing throughout the SRU that they thought my attributes could make me an international scrum-half down the line. Growing up that was everything I wanted to do - play for Scotland and try to be the best in Scotland and try to be the best in the world - so if that was going to make my chances better then it was a case of go for it."

His transformation was made harder by the fact that there were so many other scrum-halves on Edinburgh's books. Last season he was probably fourth-choice in the position at the capital club, and he struggled even to get Premiership outings with Heriot's, where Sean Kennedy had also been assigned. To Hidalgo-Clyne, consistent starts and the accumulation of game time are the keys to improvement, and having both at Edinburgh this season have been vital elements in his rapid progress to the international stage.

Today, though, the focus is on Europe, as Edinburgh head to the Madejski Stadium for their Challenge Cup quarter-final clash with London Irish. For the victors, the prize is a home semi-final against Newport Gwent Dragons, and Edinburgh would certainly be confident of beating their Guinness PRO12 bedfellows and progressing to the final at the Twickenham Stoop in four weeks' time.

There is a fascinating sub-plot to today's game, as Hidalgo-Clyne and London Irish scrum-half Scott Steele grew up together and formed a useful half-back partnership for Merchiston School. Later, Hidalgo-Clyne was full-back for the Scotland under-20 side in which Steele played at 9. Their exchanges at scrum time today should be interesting.

Hidalgo-Clyne believes he starts that game-within-a-game with an edge. "It will be a bit easier playing against him as I played with him for so many years," he smiles. "He's never played with me as a 9 so obviously that's something to my advantage. I'm looking forward to it."

To say Hidalgo-Clyne is in form at the moment would be a bit of understatement. A big bit of understatement. Quite apart from anything he has done in a Scotland shirt, his goal-kicking gifts - and the occasional try - made him the Challenge Cup's top points scorer ahead of this weekend's round of matches. And in each of his last two outings for Edinburgh, away wins against Treviso and Scarlets, he picked up the man-of-the-match award.

Last season, there was a sense that Glasgow's run to the PRO12 final was powered, at least in part, by the determination of their Scotland players to make up for the disappointments suffered on the international stage. Will Edinburgh's players have the same motivation in the weeks ahead? Aside from anything they might achieve in the Challenge Cup, they also need to improve their PRO12 position to clinch a place in next season's top-tier European Champions Cup. Currently seventh, if they can climb just one place higher, and then stay in the top six until the season's end, they will be back among the big boys.

Edinburgh had basket-case status at the start of last season, and it would be pushing it to say they made huge strides over the course of that campaign as they were still regularly wretched at its tail end. Yet coach Alan Solomons now has solid grounds for believing that the pain of his first year in charge has delivered gain in the second as his team are now demonstrating consistency and self-belief.

Hidalgo-Clyne is certainly convinced that his side are in a good place at the moment. "It's been fantastic," he says. "The fact that we're now pushing that sixth place in the Pro12 and obviously with European stuff it's brilliant.

"We had a tough pool game against Lyon where we picked up a lot of injuries and that really put a downer on the team for a little while, but the depth of our squad actually improved and in the long run I think it's actually helped us. Players that maybe weren't regular starters have had to step up.

"The fact that there are more Edinburgh players involved [with Scotland] is fantastic. Coming out of a Six Nations like that everyone is really keen. Some of the Edinburgh guys didn't have a lot of game-time in the Six Nations so it takes us a game or two to get back up to speed.

"But we played well against Scarlets last week and there is a good buzz about the camp to go down and put one over Irish and get to a semi-final."