Ben Cairns admits Edinburgh were proud of achieving a 100% home record during the Pool stages of the Heineken Cup and believes the Black and Red Army can carry that form into the next Magners League match at Munster in February.
The 9-7 victory over group qualifiers Stade Francais proved that, on their day, Edinburgh are a match for any team in Europe.
And, after a couple of blips, Cairns says the team’s high tempo attacking style is starting to click together which bodes well ahead of the run-in for the end-of-season play-offs.
Cairns said: “I think winning all of our home games was a massive achievement. When you go into Europe, you always talk about winning your home games and we’ve managed to do that.
“Unfortunately we couldn’t pick up any points away from home. Those inches that cost you when it comes to qualifying for the quarter finals.
“We need to start better away from home. When you look back at the Bath game, we were very close to getting a bonus point and the same happened at Ulster.
“It is those little errors which cost you at the top level. But we got a lot of confidence from beating three quality teams at home.
“We just need to take that same attitude with us on the road and get some positive results.
“We have got to kick on now – we showed some glimpses of getting back to our best against Ulster and there was more evidence of that against Stade.
“It is about taking that confidence forward and realising that we are good at playing that type of style at Munster.
“We haven’t played that well in the past during the Six Nations period. So it is really important that we gel together and get a couple of really good wins.
“That starts away at Munster and if we can do that then it sets us up nicely for the run-in for the play-offs.”
Edinburgh pegged Stade back inside the visitors’ 22 for long periods, but arguably the home side’s best chance to score a try arrived when Cairns almost intercepted a pass.
Unfortunately the ball agonisingly fell out of his hands with a clear run through to the whitewash begging and the Scotland centre admits it was a sticky match.
He added: “It was a frustrating game for me – there were a few things that just didn’t come off.
“The interception was the main example of that. I almost got there too early and I just didn’t catch it. I can’t even explain why I didn’t catch it. I thought I had it in my hands and it bounced straight off them.
“There were a few situations like that during the game. We were close on numerous occasions to breaking their line and scoring. I think the good thing that came from the Stade match was that we are getting back to playing that expansive game.
“I thought I was getting more touches of the ball than I have been recently and there was more to play with. We were playing a quick game with a real tempo that suits us.
“Some of our counter-attacking play against Stade was awesome.”
