Andy Robinson, the Edinburgh coach, has told his players not to panic about their sorry early-season form, but to concentrate on playing at their peak for the full 80 minutes.

Edinburgh have lost both of their Magners League games so far - being beaten 20-15 at home by Munster, and going down 52-6 away to Leinster - and they have a growing injury list that has forced Robinson to move Hugo Southwell from full back to centre, but the coach remains upbeat.

“When you look at last week we were in a good position for the first 20 to 25 minutes, but in both of the games we have played, we have made a couple of errors and been punished severely,” he said. “It shows there is no need to panic, the structure is good, these are the players that we have and they are good enough to be able to deliver. It is important that we are playing for the entire 80 minutes and that we control field position.

“The last game went away from us and turned into a runaway victory for Leinster, and full credit to them for the way they played in the last 30 minutes. There is no doom and gloom here, there is obviously a lot we have to do. We have to focus on ourselves though. We have to be able to keep the pressure on and stop the errors.

"We do need to respond. As a group we need to manage the game better, we need to cut out the mistakes and we need to sharpen up.”

Despite their determination to put things right against the Scarlets at Murrayfield tomorrow, Edinburgh are still hampered by injuries, only partly reduced by the return of Alan MacDonald at flanker, though even he will still face a late fitness test and is far from certain to play.

Assuming he is available, though, the injury attention switches from the back row to the centre, where Calum MacRae has now been added to the catalogue of those unavailable, making Nick De Luca the only specialist available. To cover the gap, Southwell is given a chance to relive his brief career as a centre, though at 13 not 12, as happened when he was capped there by Matt Williams in 2005. He had a spell in the role during the preseason warm-up win over London Wasps, and says he is comfortable in the position despite his inexperience.

“He has been playing there a lot from second, third or fourth phase so it is not that unusual,” Robinson said. “With the number of injuries we have we are in this position where we felt this is the right solution. He is the right person for us, a short-term fix to allow us to move on.”

Edinburgh will be facing a Scarlets side who also have injury problems with Dacon Manu, the prop, and Dafydd James, the wing, the latest to drop out of the squad.

Southwell will be up against another newcomer in Rob Higgitt, the stand-in for Regan King, another early-season injury victim who scored a hat-trick on his last visit to Murrayfield.