ANY hope Scotland had that Alasdair Dickinson, the Edinburgh prop, might come to the rescue of the national team's scrum for next week's Calcutta Cup clash at Twickenham ended after 49 minutes when he left the field on a stretcher after damaging a foot on his comeback game – the same injury that had kept him sidelined since Christmas.

To compound the Edinburgh misery, not only did they lose a game they came close to snatching but Magnus Bradbury, the back row and another with an outside chance of Scotland involvement, also came off injured having damaged a knee.

"That's the way things are going for us at the moment," said Duncan Hodge, the head coach. "Problems keep mounting up and all in certain positions as well. There are two positions we are short in, front row and back row, and now we have lost another one in each of those."

What Hodge could take a little more solace in was the level of performance. The gulf between the teams had been obvious all week with the Ospreys sitting pretty in second place, a mere 39 points ahead of Edinburgh – but the Scots had given as good as they got for most of the game and had a strong case for a penalty try late on.

"It was not a great night to play rugby but we had a lot of territory, a lot of possession. There were a few error but it comes down to one little mistake that gave them a try. We had chances and with that line out five metres out ... well should score there," he said.

Remember, this was a stronger Ospreys side than the one that got a scoring bonus point against Glasgow Warriors last weekend with six players back from the Wales squad, all of them with points to prove – led by Sam Davies, the fly-half who many think should be starting for the national side.

He soon made his presence felt, pinning Edinburgh back into their half with accurate touch-finders down the cold wind behind his team in the opening exchanges. Edinburgh, however, rode the initial Welsh surge and battled back into the game as both sides demonstrated how hard it was to handle in the heavy rain that had arrived just before kick off.

The result was first blood to the Scots and they had returning Scotland prop Dickinson to thank for it as the scrum held steady and Brian Mujati, the former Springbok on the Ospreys tighthead, was penalised for trying to tug him down.

The riposte was instant. From the kick off, Ospreys won a penalty for a high tackle, allowing Davies to level the scores and then the fly half cut through on his own before drawing the final tackler and slipping the ball to Josh Matvesi, the centre, to run in the try. Davies converted.

That, to be fair, was the exception as far as the Edinburgh defence was concerned. Neither side was being too ambitious with their handling and the Edinburgh tackling was never less than wholehearted and willing.

They might even have given themselves a chance to draw level when they stole a line out in the Ospreys 22 and spread the ball wide. If one of the midfield had been able to suck in his defenders before delivering the pass, it might have been different but in the end Damien Hoyland, the wing, ran out of space a yard short.

Typical of their play in recent months, they then undid all the good work with a careless handling mistake as wave after wave of forward drives were stopped on the line before a guddle allowed the Ospreys to clear the danger.

Even with the wind in the second half, the mistakes kept coming and kept squandering attacking chances – more excusable mistakes of execution when the slippery ball was dropped; less excusable errors of judgment as when Weir kicked the ball away in the Ospreys 22.

Their best chance came from the move that injured Dickinson when they engineered a line out five yards out and packed the maul with extra bodies to get it driving to the line. They did get the penalty when it crashed to the ground but with momentum so firmly behind them might have expected more. In keeping with the theme of the night they kicked for touch and messed up the next line out.

They did claw back some of the difference with Weir adding two penalties to one by Davies and they finished the game with a desperate attempt to claw back the try that would earn an improbable win.

It was sparked by a moment of inspiration from Hoyland, with Michael Allen on the other wing, bringing Edinburgh close but – guess what – once the forwards started trying to muscle their way to the line, the handling error followed. It was that sort of game on that sort of night for Edinburgh.

Edinburgh: B Kinghorn (J Rasolea, 72); D Hoyland, G Bryce, C Dean, R Scholes (M Allen, 63); D Weir, S Hidalgo-Clyne (N Fowles, 72); A Dickinson (D Appiah, 49), N Cochrane (C) (S McInally, 59), M McCallum (K Bryce, 68), G Gilchrist (A Bresler, 59), B Toolis (A Bresler, 37-41), M Bradbury (L Carmichael, 59), J Ritchie, C Du Preez.

Ospreys: D Evans; K Giles, K Fonotia, J Matavesi, D Howell; S Davies, T Habberfield (C); N Smith (P James, 60), S Parry (H Gustafson, 64), B Mujati, T Ardron, R Thornton (J Bearman, 59-64 ), O Cracknell, S Underhill (D Baker, 59), J King.

Referee: G Clancy (Ireland)

Attendance: 2,873