With no risk of immediately being put out and no pressure as they take aim at their opponents, it is the equivalent of one of cricket’s free hits as Edinburgh visit Montpellier.

No-one is expecting a team that has not been involved in Europe’s top tournament for five years, to provide any sort of threat to their hosts, yet as his opposite number knows, that is bound to make former Scotland coach Vern Cotter nervous as he prepares the French club for this encounter.

“I’ve been there myself with Leicester and Toulon. Everything you do is probably not good enough, when you win, you should do, when you lose, it’s probably a little bit of a disaster,” Edinburgh’s head coach Richard Cockerill observed yesterday.

“Of course, it’s hard… the pressure’s all on the home team. We can come and play and do our thing and see where we get to because no-one thinks we can go there and win. Even with their injury issues that’s a very, very strong squad, certainly in the forward pack that’s a very big unit. We’re looking forward to it but it’s going to be difficult.”

Even with several leading players missing, Montpellier can still field one of the most formidable line-ups to be encountered anywhere.

“I think they’ll come at us from everywhere, but they’ve got a forward pack that is very big and very physical and if they can get on top of us up front and get their power game going then we’ll struggle because in European terms we’re not a massive team," said Cockerill.

"Physically they’ll be bigger than us, but it’s for us to be smart enough around the setpieces to hold our own and put them under pressure and keep the ball-in-play time high and in that create opportunities for ourselves. We’re not going to be able to bash, smash and out-muscle them but I expect us to compete for sure.”

That is in spite of the fact that Edinburgh will start the match with seven forwards who will likely be in the Scotland squad that starts next month's autumn internationals, along with dynamic Fijian No.8 Bill Mata.

However, leading French and English clubs are restricted in selection only by spending power rather than national boundaries and, as Cockerill pointed out, can consequently assemble even more challenging units.

“Of course, I’m confident we can match them, but at some point the attrition of their bodyweight… that would be bigger than any pack in world rugby from a size point of view,” he observed.

“We have guys like Alan Dell, he’s not a massive man, just over 100 kilos and WP Nel, he’s relatively very light for a tighthead although technically very good. So, pure physics of the size of their team may count at the end, but we will see.

"We are going to go at them as hard as we can and to try and make it as tough a contest as possible and when we get the opportunity to kick to the corner and have a crack at them we will and we’ll see where we get to.

"We’ve got a little bit of cavalry off the bench, we are going to need them. That last twenty five minutes we are going to need fresh bodies. They are going to come on and hopefully have an impact for us, but we'll see. I'm hoping across the board that we just all perform to the best of our ability really.

"The sum of our parts has to be really good, the collective’s got to be strong and everybody’s got to be on their best game. If we do that we give ourselves a chance.

"If we’re a little bit off then they’re certainly good enough to punish us, (but) we’ve got some very good players that can step up to the plate and show what they can do on the biggest stage in club rugby.”

For all that it is easier said than done, then Cockerill knows that his men can generate an upset if they can keep the big men moving for long enough periods, noting that being relative lightweights has the potential to offer an advantage if they can turn the match into a Pro14 style encounter, pointing out that: “Average ball in play is over 40 minutes in the Pro14 and its just over 30 mins in the Top14, so we’ve got to try and make that pay."

The odds are heavily against their capacity to do so, but they are free to have a go without any real risk to prospects or reputation and that has to put Cotter and co. on edge.