A breathtaking finale at the Stadio Luigi Zaffanella in Viadana saw Edinburgh come from behind to claim victory in what was their first competitive match on Italian soil and their first against Italian opposition in the Magners League.
Rob Moffat's side trailed their hosts for almost the whole of the second half, but summoned a heroic conclusion to nail their second win in as many games. With a mere three minutes left on the clock, interval replacement Allan Jacobsen flopped over the Aironi line to round off a brilliant driving maul and reduce the Italians' lead to a single point.
David Blair kept his nerve admirably in the face of jeers from the home crowd to slot the ball between the sticks and see Edinburgh home 10-9. Taken in tandem with last week's thrilling win over Leinster, the result will see the capital club begin their Heineken Cup campaign in Cardiff next Saturday in thoroughly confident mood.
Back in Lombardy, Edinburgh were forced to make a late change to the replacements bench after Mike Blair was withdrawn as a precautionary measure having sustained a slight tweak to his hamstring in training on Friday. Ross Samson took his spot among the substitutes.
Blair's injury is not expected to have any significant implications longer-term, with the Edinburgh medical staff optimistic that he will be available for selection for next week's European opener in the Cardiff City Stadium.
The game kicked off in front of a typically boisterous Italian crowd and it wasn't long before the respective forward packs were locking horns in a bid to establish early supremacy. Edinburgh enjoyed the better of these initial exchanges, winning a morale-boosting penalty in the scrum when Salvatore Perugini, the veteran Azzurri prop, was pinged for dropping his bind.
David Blair, one of the heroes from the win over Leinster last week, launched the ball to the far right corner, and followed this up with a steepling kick to the other side that had the Aironi defence squirming and Tito Tebaldi, the scrum-half, barging into a ruck from the side. Blair calmly slotted over the first points of the evening.
Prior to the game, most observers had identified the tight-five battle as one of the keys to the overall contest, and the soundness of this verdict was consistently apparent. The scrums were fiercely contested affairs, each front row giving as good as it got and requiring referee Dudley Phillips to keep a close eye on proceedings. Twelve minutes in, the Irishman penalised Edinburgh for collapsing the set-piece, a decision that gave Ludovic Mercier a straightforward shot at levelling up the scores.
With Aironi defending the fringes of the breakdown with ferocious intent, Edinburgh were required both to show patience and properly seize the few opportunities there were to establish momentum. One such situation saw Geoff Cross reprise the supreme form of last week and make serious yardage in the Aironi 22. Greig Laidlaw continued the move with a quickly whipped pass to Alan MacDonald, but the returning flanker couldn't quite reel in the slippery ball.
Another promising move, that saw Alex Grove feed Mark Robertson for a dart up the right touchline, met a similarly frustrating fate as the wing failed to hold on to possession.
While these errors will have exasperated players and coaches alike, both groups could take comfort from the stoutness of Edinburgh's defending. Jim Thompson, making his first appearance since a summer tidy-up operation on his knee, instantly restated his credentials with a convincing hit on Nick Williams as the Aironi No.8 set himself to finish off a bullocking run with a score.
Minutes later, Thompson showcased the other side of his increasingly impressive game, dragging the home defence this way then that with a mazy run through the heavy traffic that put the game right back where Edinburgh wanted to play it.
Seconds before, the visitors had breathed a sigh of relief when Mercier, having dropped back into the pocket, was marginally out with an attempted drop goal. The Frenchman then erred with a penalty, awarded when a clearing box-kick from Laidlaw clattered off MacDonald's back with the breakaway in an offside position.
Unfortunately for Edinburgh, Mercier was not so lenient at his next attempt from the tee, brought about when the visiting scrum again found itself in trouble.
HALF-TIME AIRONI 6 EDINBURGH 3
Edinburgh emerged from the changing rooms with a slightly remodelled front row, Allan Jacobsen entering the fray in place of Kyle Traynor. Almost immediately, Perugini, Jacobsen's opposite number, was penalised for collapsing the scrum, but Blair's attempt to goal from way out right fell agonisingly short.
Aironi replacement Riccardo Bocchino, just on for Mercier, passed up the offer of three points with a kick from a central position that also lacked the legs to make it over. The hosts were dominating territory and possession at this stage, the big ball carriers in their pack beginning to enjoy success, most notably on the back of a tap-penalty on the Edinburgh 10-metre line that saw Perugini and Williams making dents. .
In the midst of all this pressure, Edinburgh were reduced to 14 men, MacDonald sent to the sin-bin as referee Phillips signalled his displeasure at the number of indiscretions in and around the ruck. Aironi strove hard for a pushover try, but the visitors showed considerable guts to successfully repel each attempt.
Having relieved the pressure by winning a penalty close to their own line, Edinburgh proceeded to produce a spell of possession and threat that culminated in Aironi being penalised for offside. Blair's kick had the distance but not, this time, the accuracy, and the Italians' three-point lead remained maddeningly intact.
The final quarter saw James King, the former Borders and Melrose centre, introduced for his Edinburgh debut as the capital club attempted to introduce greater fluency to their attacking play. Such a shift became a necessity when Bocchino stretched Aironi's advantage with a 72nd-minute penalty.
The glimmer of light that Edinburgh so badly needed arrived when Williams was pinged for side entry, allowing Blair to kick for the left corner and the visiting pack to apply pressure. As the lineout contracted into a maul, Carlo Antonio Del Fava, the Aironi lock, interfered illegally at the cost of a yellow card. The next drive was to wreak even greater havoc, and put a smile on Edinburgh faces ahead of the journey back to base in Parma.
FULL-TIME AIRONI 9 EDINBURGH 10
AIRONI: Julien Laharrague; Giulio Toniolatti, Rodd Penney, Gilberto Pavan, Danwel Demas; Ludovic Mercier, Tito Tebaldi; Alberto De Marchi, Fabio Ongaro, Salvatore Perugini, Carlo Antonio Del Fava, Quintin Geldenhuys (captain), Andrea Benatti, Josh Sole, Nick Williams.
Replacements: Roberto Santamaria, Andrea De Marchi, Luca Redolfini, Marco Bortolami, Jaco Erasmus, Pablo Canavosio, Gabriel Pizarro, Riccardo Bocchino.
EDINBURGH: Jim Thompson; Mark Robertson, Ben Cairns, Alex Grove, Tim Visser; David Blair, Greig Laidlaw; Kyle Traynor, Ross Ford, Geoff Cross, Esteban Lozada, Scott MacLeod, Fraser McKenzie, Alan MacDonald, Roddy Grant (captain)
Replacements: Andrew Kelly, Allan Jacobsen, David Young, Craig Hamilton, Dave Denton, Ross Samson, James King, Tom Brown
REF: D Phillips (IRFU)
