Edinburgh's Matt Scott Matt can put gloss on Test hopes against Southern Kings tonight

Edinburgh centre Matt Scott has been tipped for a Scotland recall after working hard to iron out flaws in his game which have led to more than two-and-a-half years in the international wildnerness.

The 29-year-old centre’s 39th and last cap to date came in the summer Test win against Australia in Sydney back in the summer of 2017.

He has since returned for a second spell at Edinburgh following a stint with Gloucester but has been frustrated by a long-term concussion problem and other niggles, the most recent of which he returned from off the bench last Saturday with a game-changing cameo in Edinburgh’s 29-19 1872 Cup-levelling win at home to Glasgow.

He gets a start tonight against Southern Kings at BT Murrayfield and Edinburgh defence coach Calum MacRae was full of praise for the way Scott has applied himself since returning to Scotland.

“When Matt first came back to the club the first thing he was looking to do was to improve. Obviously defence is an area that I take charge of and I’ve been really, really impressed by him this season around the principles that we hammer into the guys in the backline around what we look for,” said the assistant coach.

“I think there’s been a marked changed in his behaviours [on the field] and the consistency of the work that he does there has improved.

“Hopefully the national selectors see that and will pay credit to his club form in that respect. He obviously did very well with ball in hand off the bench last week, but the set-piece efforts defensively that he had to deal with against a dangerous Glasgow attack I thought he did exceptionally well.”

Scott has spoken recently of how he feels that shedding 10kg of weight has sharpened up his game, and MacRae added: “He’s one of these guys who’s a really strong responder to some elements of the training that you do with him.

“He’ll put on lean muscle mass twice as quickly as some guys, and during that period that he was off with his head injury there were certain types of training that he could do, others that he couldn’t. On his phased return he was looking to maintain his fitness and he is a quick responder.

“If more Scottish lads had his genetics in relation to training response we’d be in a really good place – I think he is a really functional playing weight at the moment. His consistency and repeated efforts have shown that, especially that for the 20-25 minutes last week.”

Scott partners James Johnstone in a new-look midfield pairing against the Conference basement boys this evening, with Fijian international Eroni Sau returning on the wing.

John Barclay returns in the back-row after recovering from a head knock that has kept him out for a few weeks.