Mike Blair assessing Edinburgh's Scotland internationals

Edinburgh head coach Mike Blair is assessing his Scotland internationals before deciding which of them to restore to the team for Friday’s United Rugby Championship showdown with Munster.

The capital club were without a host of big names for Saturday’s disappointing defeat away to Benetton as Grant Gilchrist, Blair Kinghorn, Darcy Graham, Duhan van der Merwe, Pierre Schoeman and Jamie Ritchie were among those given time off following their exploits with the national team during the recent autumn series.

The majority of the team’s key men have now rejoined training ahead of Friday’s match at home to ninth-place Munster.

“We should have most of our internationals available so we’ll just work out the best way of bringing them back in over this intense period,” said Blair, referring to the fact his fifth-place team are due to play on each of the next nine weekends before the Six Nations kicks off in early February.

“Munster have improved a lot as the season has gone on. We definitely see a lot of growth in what they’re trying to do. They’ve made some changes with their coaching and their systems but they’ve still got quality players and they’ll feel it’s a really important game for them, as it is for us.”

Blair, speaking at his media briefing on Monday afternoon, remained frustrated with his team’s display in Saturday’s 24-17 defeat in Italy.

“We weren’t consistent enough with our application,” he said. “There was some really good stuff in there, some good moments, but playing away from home against a team like Benetton, you need to be on it 100 per cent and we kind of dropped in and out the game.

“That’s not good enough at this level.”