Edinburgh coach Alan Solomons refused to bill his side's 20-8 victory over Glasgow at BT Murrayfield as a changing of Scottish rugby's guard, but it was clear that the capital outfit are now closer to the men from the west than at any time since Andy Robinson - in his pre-Scotland days - was running their affairs five years ago.
Yet to what extend were Gregor Townsend's Warriors conspirators in their own downfall? Glasgow started this Guinness PRO12 season at a remarkable lick, scoring three first-half tries against reigning champions Leinster in their opening game, but they have dropped a couple of cogs since. It would be overstating their tempo to say they even got into second gear for much of their clash with Edinburgh.
In fairness, Glasgow have ground out wins over Munster and Edinburgh - in the 1872 Cup's first leg last weekend - in similar fashion recently, but their lack of gas finally counted against them in the national stadium. To compound that failing, they also took a hammering in the set-piece. Is their challenge fading or is this simply another mid-season dip along the lines of the one they suffered a year ago?
"It happens to everyone," said Townsend. "Nobody plays at their highest level in every game. But that's why we have coaches and players on the field to remind everyone that standards have to be achieved every week or we will lose games.
"It will be a reminder for us all when we watch the video on Monday as a group that we have to do the fundamentals right and put the effort in to win games or we end up losing.
"We know we haven't played at our best over the past few weeks. We have managed to win a couple of big games in the league and we have come close in Europe, but this was our poorest performance of the season.
"We've got to get back on track, work hard during next week and the coming weeks to make sure that we do improve."
Townsend's astute and even courageous player-rotation policy has served Glasgow well in the past, but there was a feeling that it came unstuck on Friday. Al Kellock, man of the match a week earlier, looked jaded and was replaced at half time. Yet Townsend will have to use his squad to the fullest when he loses players to Scotland, so Glasgow will be stretched.
It is more heartening by far to consider that Edinburgh - billed as a "basket case" only 18 months ago - may finally have turned the corner. They played with muscular determination and self-belief.
"The significance of this game should not be lost," Solomons smiled.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article