Edinburgh Rugby’s attack coach, Duncan Hodge, admits it is tricky to know exactly when to reintroduce the internationalists who are returning to club rugby after their World Cup exploits, but he admits he is pleased to be faced with such a problem.

Rather than struggling with so many of their players in Japan on international duty, Edinburgh have thrived, winning three of their opening four Guinness Pro14 matches, including a hugely impressive 46-7 win over Scarlets at Murrayfield at the weekend.

Against Scarlets, Scotland returnees, Henry Pyrgos, who was a late call-up to the starting fifteen after Nic Groom’s wife had gone into labour, and Blair Kinghorn put in stellar performances, but Hodge revealed that there is no further World Cup players due to return to the line-up for this weekend’s trip to Treviso to face Benetton. And there will be no rush to reintroduce the returning players either.

“It’s pretty much the same as last week, I think,” he said

“That’s the thing, there’s no rush.

“It’s a difficult one, because all these guys go away, we’ve not seen them for four months, and there’s been changes. It takes a bit of time to integrate them back.

“We got lucky last week. Blair (Kinghorn) slotted in really well with very little training. Henry (Pyrgos) wasn’t as bad, because he was with us, then he was away.

And Magnus (Bradbury) picked it up at late notice.

“But it is a hard thing sometimes, transitioning them back, and it will be a hard thing to manage over the next two weeks, just when they go in, how much training we give them, that sort of stuff.”

Edinburgh are playing a more expansive brand of rugby this season, and it is hard for anyone to argue it is not paying off. The backs have started the season particularly well and as backs coach, Hodge admits he has been pleased to see the team execute what they have worked on in training quite so well.

“It was always the plan - the foundations were put in place, and I think everyone knew we had to go to the next level to change a few things. We’ve done that - we’re still in the early stages of doing that,” he said.

“The foundations of what’s been good about Edinburgh over the last two years are still there - that’s not gone away, and the last thing we want is to erode that at all. As with every good team you’ve got to keep evolving - keep up with the times and try and get ahead of defences in my eyes.

“That’s where the World Cup was actually very good for us, in that we had a longer pre-season to try a few things out and bed some things in. It’s been good and we’re starting to see a bit of fruit to that. There will be bumps along the way, and I guarantee there will be times when it doesn’t work, but at the minute I think everyone’s fairly content and settled with what we’re doing and we’ll just keep going.”

Against Scarlets, Mark Bennett and Matt Scott linked up in impressive fashion and bearing in mind the injury battles the pair have faces in recent seasons, Hodge has been delighted to see both get close to full fitness simultaneously.

Bennett specifically has had a hellish time of things and has struggled to live up to the potential he showed as he broke through into the senior game. But Hodge is hopeful that, with a run of fitness, Bennett can be back to his very best.

“There’s certainly been glimpses of him getting back to his best,” he said of Bennett.

“He is doing some great things, scoring tries and some of his work off the ball and distribution and decision making. We have not seen that form consistently in the last two years since he got injured against England.

“We have not seen a months worth of rugby in a row from him in that time, it is not his fault, it’s just the way it’s been.”