Heineken Cup: Older and wiser, Allan Jacobsen is hungry for the club and country battles ahead

Allan Jacobsen was one of only four in the current Edinburgh squad involved then, Chris Paterson, Mike Blair and Andrew Kelly the others.

Only the prop and scrum-half played last night, and “Chunk” Jacobsen admitted success tasted just as sweet as it did eight years ago, perhaps more so because of the wait to savour it again and the fact that this time they would be meeting Toulouse on home ground.

Jacobsen, who made his debut in the Heineken Cup 12 years ago, said: “If I’m honest, in the last few years, even ten years, there hasn’t been any expectation for us to qualify and I don’t think it was any different this year.

“But we got on this roll in the Heineken Cup and a home quarter-final is a dream for any team.”

Jacobsen has become a more influential player the older he has become, and, at 33, is one of few certainties to be starting for Scotland against England in the Six Nations opener.

His performances in Europe have been full of aggression and endeavour, in the tight and loose, but there is a sense that that workrate and experience is now being supported by stronger personnel coming through the Edinburgh squad.

He has certainly been impressed by the desire to come back and win games at the death in this Heineken Cup campaign.

“The week before it started, we went to Treviso and battled [in the RaboDirect PRO12] and it was the same in the opening tie against London Irish, and the guys showed that they just don’t give up; they don’t know when they’re beat.

“Look at that Racing game [Edinburgh came back from 24 points down]. That can’t be drilled into people; that’s got to be there, people wanting to give everything until the end. It’s brilliant to be involved in something like that. It was similar to the last time, in the sense that we didn’t do well in the league that year but we were doing well at Meadowbank and were hard to beat at home. And we developed a mentality in the Heineken from the first game, where we beat Toulouse at home and went down to Leeds and beat them.

“London Irish came out fighting after half-time, and we knew they’d come back and make it a hard match. But I always feel that when we get our set-piece right and do our drills right we can score tries, and we showed that at the end.”

Wings Tim Visser and Lee Jones scored, as did the third member of the back three, Jim Thompson, underlining the effectiveness of Edinburgh’s attacking game. Jones, who will join Jacobsen in his first Six Nations squad tomorrow, admitted that he was living in dreamland.

“I felt ecstatic at the end,” he said. “We got the message with ten minutes to go that we had to go for the bonus point, so we were really pushing. They defended a two-on-one very well, and I thought that might be our chance gone, but we got another one and I was delighted to score.

“The key for me was patience. We never really thought about the four tries, but just going out to win the game, and then towards the end maybe throw that extra pass, and that worked.

“I don’t really have time to reflect at the moment and it will be a quiet one tonight, because we’ll be straight into it [with Scotland] tomorrow.”

He added: “To get the home quarter-final was a big thing, and we were delighted with that, and to me it doesn’t matter who it is.”

Jacobsen echoed those sentiments and is hopeful that the success will provide a boost for Scotland in the RBS Six Nations.

“There is a change of focus now from Edinburgh into the Six Nations and that’s good, but then when we come back we have that game to look forward to, and I can’t wait.

“I always go into the Six Nations thinking we can do well. The problem is we don’t always play to our potential. It’s the same with Edinburgh. We can beat anybody but if we play at 80 per cent we can’t beat teams; when we play at 100 per cent we can.

“Back in 2004 I thought we’d cracked it and would kick on, and we didn’t, but hopefully we can kick on from here and make this a regular thing.”