Glasgow clearly had the upper hand last week at Scotstoun but have made just as many changes as rivals Edinburgh going into the second leg of the 1872 Cup at Murrayfield on Saturday.
The capital side will go with largely the team that finished the 23-14 loss in the opening game of the festive double-header but Glasgow have shuffled their line-up with five changes, only one of which is the result of injury.
Edinburgh, meanwhile, have lost Scotland hooker Ross Ford and international wing Lee Jones to injury as they attempt to overhaul the nine-point gap, while Fijian No 8 Netani Talei returns as Stuart McInally is rested.
Ford is nursing a shoulder knock while Jones, who was victimised by Glasgow with all three tries coming down his wing, suffered a rib injury.
For Edinburgh head coach Michael Bradley, pulling back the match aggregate to win the 1872 Cup for the first time in four years comes a distant second in importance to just recording another win to help his team’s Rabodirect PRO12 standing of ninth five places and 11 points below their rivals in fourth.
“There’s two things happening this week: the league points and the cup, and we’ve a lot to play for. Nine points in a game of rugby is not a lot,” he said.
“Certainly, we would take a victory and if that victory involved us winning the cup back then that would be fine.”
Bradley felt his team played well for large parts of Friday’s game but were undone by their horrendous start, losing three tries to the Warriors inside 22 minutes.
“Sometimes you get a game like that, but unfortunately it was a very high-profile match for us to concede soft tries,” he continued.
“We let our fans down in particular at the start of last week’s game.
“We have to play for the full 80 and keep Glasgow under pressure throughout the entire match. We’re playing at home in front of our fans and hopefully that’ll be enough to get us over the line.”
Bradley has kept faith with the fledgling half-back partnership of skipper Greig Laidlaw and new man Piers Francis, but indicated that he still considered Laidlaw’s position to be at fly-half.
“Greig did very well last week at nine, controlling the game and taking the play to Glasgow, and I was very satisfied with the way he combined with Piers, who scored and carries a threat to run himself,” added the coach.
“But Greig is still Scotland’s international 10 and he’ll be getting a few games there in the next few weeks. It’s just something we like to swap around.”
Meanwhile some of Glasgow’s alterations after last week’s success will raise eyebrows, not least the benching of Niko Matawalu, Pat McArthur and Peter Murchie, and the need to go without a specialist open-side flanker with John Barclay and Chris Fusaro both injured.
Henry Pyrgos returns, Stuart Hogg is re-instated at 15 while Dougie Hall is preferred at hooker, while Rob Harley moves across from blindside to accommodate Josh Strauss.
Assistant coach Shade Munro said the plan was to make an even bigger impact in the collisions and battle upfront.
“We saw how physical the battle was last week and we need to be ready for Edinburgh to bring an even greater level of physicality,” he said.
“Last week our defence was very good for long spells of the game and we competed very well at the breakdown but we saw, particularly at the start of the second half the threat they pose.”
stscott@thecourier.co.uk