Iain Morrsion: Edinbugh have the squad to atone for last season's failed play-offs bid

The Borders were bottom, Glasgow one better and Edinburgh ended up tenth. In a total of 66 league matches, the three Scottish sides won just 19.

Since then things have looked up, results have improved and expectations have risen hand in hand with them. Glasgow enjoyed their best finish last season (third) and Edinburgh their best showing the year before (second). In fact, Edinburgh's sixth place last time out was their worst finish for three years, although it would have been bettered had it not been for the club experiencing the biggest pratfall witnessed since Fatty Arbuckle last shared a scene with a banana skin.

Sitting comfortably in the playoff places, Edinburgh needed eight points from their final four league matches to qualify for the semi-final. They took three, despite the fact that three of those final four opponents finished below them in the table even after Edinburgh's calamitous finish to the season. What the hell happened?

"The main thing to come out of that was better leadership from me," says coach Rob Moffat, declining to duck any flak that might come his way. "Hopefully I've been around long enough not to assume or presume anything. I thought we would end the season well, I thought we'd planned well and that the players had been well managed. But we also need better leadership from the players themselves. We're not the type of coaches who are autocratic, never will be, so when things are going wrong on the pitch the players have got to sort it out."

Put simply, with qualification for the playoffs all but ensured, the Edinburgh players eased up on the home straight and Scottish pro-teams simply can't get away with anything less than their best. They were overtaken on the run-in, although some measure of pride was regained by scoring four tries in Dublin on their final outing.

Their overall try count is revealing. With a neat symmetry Moffat's team scored a whopping 40 tries over the course of their league season, more than any other team in the league, and conceded an equally whopping 40 tries. Still, the coach claims – with a straight face – that his side defended very well for much of the season, and he's right.

The overall tally of tries conceded by Edinburgh only tells half the story. In their first 14 league matches the defence begrudgingly allowed the opposition to cross their line 22 times (the equivalent of 1.6 tries per match).

Come those disastrous final four weeks and Edinburgh were doling out tries like money at a Bar Mitzvah, waving the opposition on their way to the line an astonishing 18 times in four outings (or 4.5 per match). When push came to shove at the business end of the season, Edinburgh Rugby collapsed faster than Tiger Woods' world, so a good defensive performance against Cardiff next weekend is vital if only to lay some ghosts to rest.

Moffat rejects the "journeyman" tag but this squad is refreshingly free of superstars or the egos that usually accompany them, not that they are without talent. There is an embarrassment of riches at hooker, or there will be when Fraser Brown and Alun Walker are fit to compete with Ross Ford and Andrew Kelly. Moffat has a mathematical problem on his hands of how to squeeze three openside flankers, including skipper Roddy Grant, into one or two back row places. (Incidentally was it wise to appoint as skipper the only uncapped openside flanker in the squad?) Meanwhile, in the crowded midfield, the coach must view Nick De Luca's ongoing groin/hip injury with mixed feelings since it at least gives him one fewer selection headaches.

On the down side, the squad is a little short of real beef in the number four and six shirts, although Fraser McKenzie showed up well against London Irish and Scott Newlands has apparently spent the entire summer in the gym (with or without Eye of the Tiger playing on a loop for that authentic Rocky Balboa experience) and the Kelso man could yet muscle his way into the starting line-up. Last season's experiment of playing three openside flankers in the third row of the scrum was more successful than many anticipated but an authentic, big-hitting, ball-carrying blindside flanker playing alongside the Fijian powerhouse Netani Talei in the back row would help Edinburgh compete against the more physical teams in the league, especially when the wet weather arrives.

At least the capital club appears to have bought better than Glasgow in the summer sales with three Worcester signings, Talei, prop Jack Gilding and centre Alex Grove (on loan) to go alongside the Argentine lock Esteban Lozada, who is exactly the sort of grafter that Edinburgh have missed since the versatile Kiwi Matt Mustchin moved to Japan.

Only at fly-half do Edinburgh still have a problem. With four on the books, including the academy player Gregor Hunter, Moffat is not short of choices but he doesn't have one stand-out match-winner amongst them, although Phil Godman will obviously start the season as the front runner. Alex Blair may play at outside centre, as he did on Friday, or he may play at fly-half and squeeze his brother David out of a job, but Moffat was talking up the merits of Hunter last week and the academy player can't be discounted.

According to his coach, the young Gala ten has the happy knack of doing the right thing at the right time and if he is less flash than the youngest Blair he is also a lot more dependable, so you know who the forwards will want making the decisions on a wet Friday night at Murrayfield.

Alex Blair is the exception to the rule because Hunter's promotion at the expense of Hawick's Rory Hutton brings into stark focus what is truly important in a professional playmaker; unfussy reliability is preferred to occasional flashes of brilliance and that neatly sums up this whole Edinburgh squad. If this group of players is a little short on stardust they do at least have a workmanlike look about them with some depth in key positions.

If the new signings can be melded into the squad early on and if the current good luck with injuries holds out for much of the season, if long term problems like Fraser Brown and Ross Rennie can steer clear of the physio's bench and if Edinburgh can find that miser's streak when it comes to conceding tries, if all that happens then there is the possibility that this squad could just find itself sitting in the playoff places with a few matches still to play.

Quite what will happen then is anyone's guess because they can have the finish line in sight and yet trip over their own feet.