Edinburgh were inspired at times but infuriating at others last season, and in the end paid the penalty for that inconsistency by losing too many close games and finishing a lowly 12th in the United Rugby Championship.

As the squad prepare for their first competitive outing under new senior coach Sean Everitt at the Dragons on Saturday, second-row forward Jamie Hodgson believes they will continue to entertain this season – but is confident they will also play more intelligently.

Everitt has highlighted two main problems that cost the team dearly in the last campaign. One was the goal-kicking – and with Ben Healy now on board as well as Emiliano Boffelli and Blair Kinghorn, it should be a simple matter to improve on last season’s 62 per cent success rate. The other was the number of turnovers given away – and Hodgson is convinced that that, too, should be a relatively easy fix.

“I don’t think anyone coming into Edinburgh Rugby would think we were broken – it was just the fact that we had to be better,” he said. “We’ve got great attacking shape and we play some great rugby at times, so it was just about how we add to that to make ourselves better, and I think he [Everitt] has done that.

Jamie Hodgson prepares for Edinburgh Rugby's match against Dragons this weekend.

“And I think you’ll see that with how we play the game. We spoke about how one of our biggest work-ons from last year was that we just had too many turnovers: we were giving the ball away too much. So we will still be playing some brilliant rugby – but we’ll be playing more smart rugby, I think.

“It’s about how we can make it better? How can we get ourselves further up that league table and into those play-off spots? Because ideally that’s what we play the game for – to get in the top eight, top four with a home play-off, and ultimately getting our hands on some silverware.”

Everitt will announce his team on Friday for the trip to Newport, with Healy set to be involved along with three other members of the Scotland squad that played at the Rugby World Cup – Javan Sebastian, Sam Skinner and Luke Crosbie.

Edinburgh Rugby plan to entertain this season but admit they must play more intelligently