WINNING away games had become a lost art for Edinburgh, who had not managed a victory on the road in the 268 days between March 23 and 11 days ago in Newcastle. Now that they have worked out how to do it, though, Hamish Watson reckons they can repeat the feat to claim the 1872 Cup in Glasgow.

"We would not have wanted to go into Glasgow without an away win," he said. "We have a good team and, as we saw at Murrayfield, if we stick to what we do well they will struggle to beat us – we will have a really good shot at beating them away from home. It is a new week, a completely different game. They are very good at home, it will be a tough one."

The key for Watson is that Edinburgh have found a way to frustrate Glasgow and know that if they can maintain that standard in the face of the passionate Glasgow support, they can force their Scottish rivals to make the same kinds of mistakes as they made in losing last week in Murrayfield.

It is the ultimate contrast in styles. Glasgow are all about flair and pace, with most of their star players out in the backs where they can rip teams apart but can also be starved of possession – which is precisely what Edinburgh aim to do.

While Watson's coach, Richard Cockerill, was determined to maintain the underdog tag in the face of the statistics that show Edinburgh have won seven of their last nine games against their nearest rivals, including two of the six wins they have had in Glasgow this century, Watson was more upbeat.

He knows they have found the formula to beat this Glasgow side and all they need to do is make sure they wheel it out as effectively in the away leg as they did in the home one.

After all, both the remaining games against Glasgow this season are going to be at their opponents' home, so if Edinburgh are to retain the 1872 Cup, they will have to win there at least once.

"You don’t play a team like Glasgow and expect everything to go your own way," he pointed out. "There were moments in the last game that could have gone either way but our pack really fronted up and our set piece was better than theirs. We train to get our set piece right and work very hard at it, so we are very happy with that.

"Our exits meant we put them under a lot of pressure and they could not play the game they wanted. Glasgow get very frustrated when they can’t play the game they want. We went into the game wanting to frustrate them and that is what we did."

So that's the pattern. Remember, six of the Edinburgh forwards played for Scotland in last month's Tests and the two who did not were Viliame Mata, a standout performer for Fiji, and Pierre Schoeman, who was keeping Allan Dell, a Scotland starter, out of the starting team.

Edinburgh have every reason to expect to dominate up front. If they can also cut out the silly mistakes Glasgow would have to produce some kind of miracle play to break them down. They did that when the Horne brothers, George and Peter, combined for a clever try, but could not manage it again.

"We knew that if we put line speed on them and tried to put them under a lot of pressure, they would try to force things. Luckily we had a really good start, with that interception and we had had a [penalty] kick before that," Watson noted.

"After that, they tried to force things a bit – we were 13-0 up before they replied. We started the game really well, had a really good platform into the game so that they were on the back foot from the get-go.

"They were chasing the game and were going to try to chuck a few things. They could have maybe scored a late try but it is credit to all the boys who were out there that we kept them out. That shows our mentality out there, wanting to keep them out even when it was 23-7."

On the other hand, Watson also recalls last year when the roles were reversed in the second game. Glasgow made all the mistakes in the first, Murrayfield, leg but battened down the hatches in the second came and came away 17-0 winners as Edinburgh made all the errors.

"It was a bit of a weird game last year. It was not as though it was a smashing or anything but we got parts of our game wrong," Watson recalled. "They will be gunning for us after a big win like that for us. A lot of their stuff did not go right so we will expect them to be on top form but hopefully we can get that away win.

"We knew that if we kept doing our jobs, kept getting our set piece right, kept getting our D right then they would get more and more frustrated and that is what happened.

"You could see towards the end people forcing things when they were chasing the game. All went to plan last week but at their place it will be a totally different story. They are pretty good at home – like we are. It will be a tough game."