All things must pass, and a special era in Scottish rugby has now come to an end.

No, it is not the retirement of Al Kellock of which we speak, rather the disappearance of that mighty eruption of facial foliage that had engulfed Geoff Cross's chin over the past year. For the sake of charity - and, more pressingly, domestic harmony - the game's most celebrated beard is no more.

A pity, for Cross had grown attached to the beard almost as firmly as it was to him. Newly fresh-faced, the man who had been dubbed ZZ Prop admitted to feelings akin to bereavement as the barber hacked into the shrubbery, raising thousands of pounds for the Wooden Spoon society and diminishing the wrath of Helen Cross - who hated the thing - with every swipe of the razor. Then again, he also admitted that he rather enjoyed the feeling of the wind on his chin again.

"There was an odd moment when I reached towards my face and just kept going," the London Irish forward recalled. "So that's where my jaw is, I thought. It is a bit like when you are a kid and you have lost a tooth and it feels odd for a while. I've got a shape to my face that I haven't had for a while, so that is a nice novelty."

Whether Sunday's Challenge Cup quarter-final clash with Edinburgh at the Madejski Stadium could be described in quite the same terms is open to doubt. Cross spent seven seasons with Edinburgh, transforming himself from a peripheral figure lent out by the now-defunct Border Reivers into a Test-hardened prop, but his last year there was an unhappy time as coach Alan Solomons picked him only rarely. Cross's last days in Scotland were spent on loan to Glasgow.

So what are his thoughts on a scenario that turns old friends into new foes? "I had a similar experience once when I was on loan at Edinburgh from the Borders and we then played against the Borders," he replied. "It is an interesting position to be in. There are exciting elements of challenge, fun elements of banter between the guys you know, and there is a bit of bittersweet as well. It's just another one of the many choice experiences that life in professional rugby gives you."

Ironically, Cross was in an Edinburgh shirt the last time the two sides clashed at the Madejski. The date was 12 November 2011, the occasion the first round of that season's Heineken Cup, and Edinburgh scored a stunning 20-19 victory, clinched with a Greig Laidlaw penalty awarded after a late charge by Shontayne Hape on Edinburgh lock Sean Cox. More ironic still, Cox is now a London Irish player.

The Reading club has big plans for the future, with Scotland winger Sean Maitland and All Blacks prop Ben Franks already signed up for next season. However, their ambition has rarely been on display in the current Aviva Premiership campaign as they are now third-from-last in the table. The hopelessness of London Welsh meant they had no relegation fears, but Cross admits the experience has been frustrating.

"We would like to be further up the table and we are not because of the things we have been doing on the pitch," he explained. "It is up to us to rectify that in training and then show it in games. I'm very confident that we have a group of players who can do that and that the recruitment we have been doing will help us even more.

"There are still league games left. We always want to win our next game of rugby. It's important that we prepare well and prepare professionally to win those games.

"I think it's fair to say that this game against Edinburgh is the most important we have had for several years. The players are aware of that and the coaches believe that. It is a huge motivation because you want to be involved with teams that are winning games and winning silverware. That's the nature of ambition and the European challenge competition is one where we can still shape our own destiny."

It would be pushing it to say that any tighthead prop spends his life in a comfort zone, but Cross admits that a desire to challenge himself in an English environment where the style of play is generally more forward-oriented than in the Guinness PRO12 equivalent had been a powerful motivating factor in his move south last year.

Cross said: "I'm enjoying playing in the Premiership. I'm enjoying the physicality. There is an awful lot of very direct, physical play and that is something I relish. The premiership has that in spades so I have really liked that aspect of being down here."

He also likes the fact that he is about to become a father for the first time as wife Helen, she of the anti-beard brigade, is due to give birth within the next couple of weeks. Cross admits that he would rather not hear that labour had begun in the 80 minutes after 5.45 on Sunday evening, but if circumstances demand he will quit the game early. Which would be his second heroic act of self-sacrifice in one week.