Rob Dewey, the Scotland World Cup centre, could be on his way back home this summer, though whether Edinburgh or Glasgow will win the race to sign him is far from certain. Yesterday, Andy Robinson, the Edinburgh coach, confirmed that Scottish Rugby officials are interested in talking to the player about returning from Ulster.

Of more immediate concern, Scotland could be without Matt Mustchin, the lock who won his first caps in the summer, for the Six Nations Championship when it starts next month. He has been carrying an ankle injury since the end of last season - he postponed the operation to win his caps against Argentina and then fight for a place in the autumn internationals - and aggravated the injury last week playing for Edinburgh against Glasgow. A full medical assessment will not be possible before next week, but it looks likely that he will not be able to put off the surgery any longer.

He is among a raft of changes in the Edinburgh side as injuries take their toll and Robinson tries to freshen up the team for the visit of Ulster tomorrow night after their defeat in Glasgow last week. Nick De Luca, the centre, and Scott Newlands, the flanker, have been dropped while Mustchin, Mark Robertson and Alan MacDonald are ruled out by injury.

Axing De Luca means there is now little chance of him going head-to-head against Dewey, the man whose international place he won during the autumn, and the subject of all this speculation about his future. “There will be some discussions going on with Rob [Dewey] to bring him back - if he is keen to come back - to the SRU,” Robinson admitted.

The player is likely to want to come back to Scotland, both for personal reasons and because he has failed to secure a regular place in the Ulster team, which he joined from Edinburgh during the period when the club was independently owned.

There have been persistent reports, however, that if he does return, it will be to join Glasgow rather than his old club. The team from the west spent a good chunk of this season hunting for a centre to replace Daryl Gibson and failed to find anybody suitable. Dewey would certainly fit that bill, and the reports linking him with Glasgow have been circulating since Christmas.

Robinson did nothing to debunk the idea yesterday, while admitting that his team has struggled with midfield injuries and have paid a penalty for it, culminating in a below-par performance from De Luca in his sixteenth consecutive game this season.

There was no attempt to cover his blushes by pretending he was being rested, though - a case that would have made perfect sense because De Luca has played all 13 games for Edinburgh as well as the three autumn internationals for Scotland.

“I thought Nick underperformed last week,” Robinson said. “We have got to look at reasons why and we are approaching this game in a different way. We are saying, ‘Step away this week, come off the bench and perform from there.'” The move also allows him to field John Houston, the club's find of last season who missed the early part of this campaign, in his best position and with a brief to give the job a more physical edge than De Luca typically brings to the role.

The centre swap is one of a number of changes in the Edinburgh side, including a new-look back row in which Roddy Grant, the Botswana-born grandson of Bob Burrell, the former international referee from Gala, gets his first start as the club struggle to find specialist openside flankers. The Scotland Sevens captain has been linked with Glasgow all season, and has been playing his club rugby at West of Scotland, but as a member of the National Academy he is available to both clubs.

With Ross Rennie out of action for the season and MacDonald rested after another blow on the head - the club say he is not concussed but they thought it wise to give him another week to recover - they needed a specialist openside, and after impressing playing against Edinburgh in development games earlier in the season, Grant won the place.

“He is not registered to play in the Heineken Cup next week, so we felt this was the right time to get him involved,” Robinson said. “The way he has trained was really good. He is a player of very good ability and it is right that he should be able to showcase his skills in this game. He played two back-up games against us and was a real nuisance.”

Edinburgh: H Southwell; A Turnbull, B Cairns, J Houston, S Webster; P Godman, M Blair (capt); A Jacobsen, R Ford, G Cross, C Hamilton , J Hamilton, S Cross, R Grant, A Hogg. Replacements: A Kelly, G Kerr, B Gissing, S Newlands, G Laidlaw, D Blair, N De Luca.