It is something that could never be measured, but it is hard to imagine that any player will have felt quite as home on his Murrayfield debut as Peter Horne will on Saturday.

Yes, the adrenaline will be pumping through the 25-year-old's veins as he lines up for the anthems, but as he looks along the backline he is there to orchestrate he will take reassurance form the number of familiar faces he sees.

Staggeringly, behind the scrum the only player who is not a club-mate of Horne at Glasgow Warriors will be scrum-half and captain Greig Laidlaw, formerly of Edinburgh but now on the books of Gloucester. In which circumstances, Horne is entitled to feel that a weight of responsibility has been lifted off his shoulders.

"I'm not in the team to set the heather on fire," he said. "I'll just give these guys the ball. I've got dangerous runners everywhere.

"Mark Bennett's on fire at the moment. Stuart Hogg has been making breaks left, right and centre, and with with Tommy [Seymour] and Sean [Lamont] on the wings I'm really looking forward to it. I'm really excited about just giving these guys the ball and seeing what they can do."

What they can do is already common knowledge. What Horne can do as an international fly-half is a matter of greater uncertainty. His raw abilities as a footballer are beyond doubt, and so too is his versatility, but taking on the playmaker's role in the febrile cauldron of a Six Nations clash is the sort of entirely new ball game that would test the mettle of the coolest cucumbers on the planet.

And yet, while Horne is probably better known as a centre, and while he played a decent amount of rugby at full-back as he rose through the ranks, he has put in some impressive shifts with the number 10 on his back as well. The most recent of those was in Glasgow's Guinness PRO12 meeting with Ospreys at Scotstoun last Saturday but he also did a few turns at fly-half with the all-conquering Bell Baxter school team of a few seasons ago, and then when he moved on to West of Scotland.

Yet as handy as versatility can be, it can also be a curse for a player who wants to nail down one position. Just ask Gregor Townsend, Horne's coach at Glasgow, who was shuttled from the pillar of fly-half to the post of outside-centre by a succession of coaches throughout his career. Given the presence of Finn Russell and Duncan Weir at the Warriors - and, remember, Ruaridh Jackson until last summer as well - has Horne not worried about being pigeon-holed as the utility/back-up player?

"It just depends," he answered carefully. "I think as long as you are playing well you are in a position to have that jersey, and that is what Gregor always says about Glasgow: 'If you are playing well and if its what is best for the team I am going to pick you'.

"Obviously, you don't want to be that guy who is the Jack of all trades and the master of none but I think this season I have had a bit more game time at 10. I am really enjoying it and I feel it is going well. It's something the Scotland selectors talked to me about in the summer - how, ideally, they would like to see a bit more of me at 10.

"It's exciting. I am not young any more but I am not old, I have plenty years left, so it is important to keep learning, to keep working hard and to nail down that position."

It is not so long since Horne might have felt pressure from behind as his kid brother George has put in a series of impressive performances at fly-half for Glasgow Hawks. However, the younger Horne has lately decided to concentrate his efforts on playing at scrum-half, in which role he will turn out for the Scotland under-20 side against their Italian counterparts at Netherdale this evening. The Horne clan jas some weekend in store.

"He is absolutely buzzing at the moment," said Peter of George. "He's done really well since he moved to nine and he's loving every minute of it. It's nice picking up the phone to him and hearing his excitement. Mum and dad are really chuffed, really proud."

All very heartwarming, but what of the delicate question of Russell? It was only on Wednesday afternoon that Russell's two-week ban, handed down for his collision with Dan Biggar of Wales in the last round of the championship, was confirmed, and there must be a sneaking suspicion that Horne was the only man in Scotland who harboured a quiet hope that things would turn out that way.

Horne deals with the issue elegantly: "I knew that if Finn was clear he would play, but when he wasn't I guess there was a bit of excitement. So I'm just really excited about the chance I've got. It's going to be a great day n Saturday and I cant wait to get out there.

"It's obviously really tough on Finn. You don't ever like to see your mates getting banned. He is a good friend of mine and I think it's really harsh. But I can't go into the game worrying about that kind of thing. An opportunity has come up and I need to go out and make the most of it."