Having been able to watch the autumn Test series with a certain detachment the man who is normally in charge of the home team at Scotland’s national stadium believes he has seen similar problems to those he is trying to address with Edinburgh.

Now very much part of the domestic rugby scene, Richard Cockerill almost stumbled into referring Scotland as ‘we’, before the word caught in his mouth and he jokingly apologised for being unable to use it. However, he has embraced the role he has been given, to try to create a winning mentality, saying just last month: “If it kills me, I am going to get rid of this Scottish trait of, ‘we’re always going to be second best and we’re going to be plucky losers’, because it does my head in. I’m an arrogant Englishman and I expect to win, that is just my nature, love it or not.”

Consequently, for all the consolation that has been taken from within the Scotland camp and among commentators following a defeat by a smaller margin than was suffered earlier in the year against Wales and a single score defeat to the Springboks, the former England hooker reckons their efforts reflect the state of the rugby nation.

“The Wales game was disappointing in the result although I thought Scotland played pretty well. They had opportunities to win the game but didn’t take them,” said Cockerill.

“That is the next stage, which we as a club are trying to develop as well. Fine margins, a couple of errors in defence and suddenly you are losing the game. Fiji was a good performance and I thought it was a good performance against South Africa, but it is back to that thing, at some point they have got to turn narrow losses into wins.”

There has been much lamenting of Scottish misfortune on the rugby field over recent years, but as the Edinburgh boss seemed to suggest, there comes a point when repeated narrow losses cannot be put down to coincidence.

“It is similar to ourselves and maybe Glasgow in Europe. It is those tiny little bits which at the moment always tend to fall against us as Scottish teams,” Cockerill continued.

“We’ve got to just try and break that barrier of knocking one of those big teams over, to just fall on that right side of that result rather than just be shy of it after a brave performance. It is the ‘W’ at the end of the column which is the important part.”

Cockerill’s main focus this weekend has to be on preparing what is inevitably an under-strength Edinburgh side for their trip to Wales to meet the Dragons on Sunday, but with six of his players in Scotland’s starting line-up for Saturday’s meeting with Argentina and two more on the bench, he will have a significant interest in events at BT Murrayfield and he expects it to be challenging for the home side.

“I think it will be very, very tough this weekend,” he said.

“Argentina have improved over the last two months, and although the results haven’t been positive the performances have been very, very good – and, Christ, they are a physical team. So, I think it will be a very difficult challenge for Scotland at the weekend because it is not the Springboks when you know it is going to be physical and you might or might not win.

“Scotland will go into the game as favourites, but Argentina have some very good players and they are physical – they get stuck in to you – and that’s a really hard combination.

“It will be a real psychological test for the national side (and) it will be interesting from an Edinburgh point of view to see how our players handle that.”