IT cannot have been easy for Sam Hidalgo-Clyne to find himself facing a media grilling not long after finding out that he had failed to make the Scotland training squad preparing for the November Tests.

To rub it in, the third scrum-half spot in the group, the position created when Greig Laidlaw broke his leg in France, didn't go to some distant rival but to Nathan Fowles, his club colleague.

"I spoke to him in the gym and congratulated him," Hidalgo-Clyne recalled. "I think it’s awesome. He’s worked hard all season. Look – we all work together in training. It’s not one of these things I’m going to be spiteful about.

"Obviously I’m going to be gutted but he’s earned his spot. If I get my opportunity for Edinburgh [against Treviso] this weekend I’ll look to put my marker down again and keep Gregor [Townsend, the Scotland head coach] thinking.”

It's been strange for Hidalgo-Clyne. Two years ago he was in the World Cup squad and living the dream. Okay, he was not getting much game time with Laidlaw firmly established as the captain and Henry Pyrgos as his understudy, but for a 22-year-old, as he was then, glory seemed to be his for the taking.

That was also, however, when it all turned sour. He hardly played in the World Cup, came back to Edinburgh rusty and found others had secured the starting spot. He was in a real scrap for his club place and with Ali Price emerging as the heir apparent to Laidlaw, international rugby started looking more and more distant.

He might have gone on the summer tour but got injured in the pre-trip training. Maybe he did not miss that much since Sean Kennedy, who went in his place, travelled all round the Southern Hemisphere with the team and came home unused.

This season has seen Hidalgo-Clyne and Fowles pretty much playing on rotation with each other, but what must have really frustrated Hidalgo-Clyne when Townsend rang him up to give him the bad news, was that he had secured the starting spot in the previous couple of weeks and had been starting to show something like the form that got him into that World Cup squad.

Maybe it was just too late, that the coaches had already made up their minds to go for Fowles. Maybe they reckoned the European Challenge Cup opposition was too poor for them to make a meaningful judgment. Only they know.

"It’s obviously very disappointing." Hidalgo-Clyne said. "I’ve just got to grit my teeth and get on with it. I got a call from Gregor, which was nice of him to call me and give me some feedback on what he thought.

“He told me I was playing my best rugby of the season. He also told me what he wanted and what he expects from all the other scrum-halves and the things I need to work on. He wants a few more games like last week. Whether or not that would have changed selection is up to him, but for me I’ve got to focus on what I need to do in the coming weeks to put me in good stride for Edinburgh and Scotland.

"You’re always gutted and upset for the first couple of days but, once you’re over the hill, you just accept it and set yourself goals you want to achieve.”

We will find out today if he has kept his club place ahead of Fowles in the side travelling to Treviso, but he is certain to have some role in the squad. Apart from his scrum-half talents, the last couple of weeks have given him the chance to remind everybody that he played fly-half coming up through the school and youth ranks.

In both the games Jason Tovey got injured and, with Duncan Weir out of action, Hidalgo-Clyne had to fill in. At London Irish, the old Merchiston half-back pairing of him and Scott Steele found themselves on the same pitch in their old roles – but on opposite teams.

The issue for Hidalgo-Clyne is that although he is a strong attacking player and a top-class kicker, he acquired a reputation for having a service to his fly- half that could break down under pressure.

Perhaps, as a late convert to the position, it should not be a surprise that the most technical part of the scrum-half's game should be the one that let him down, but he has gone away and worked hard on it and certainly in recent matches he has been getting the ball away as quickly and smoothly as anybody.

The question remains, however – can he keep doing it under pressure? He hopes to get the chance to show he can this weekend when Treviso, who have already beaten Edinburgh at Myreside, are the opposition.

"It’s an important game," he said. "We've done a lot of detail on Treviso. We fell short to them at home, more through our mistakes than them, but I think they have improved vastly from the last couple of seasons.

"They’re a pretty good team who have been getting good results or close to good results. We’ll certainly not take them lightly. We have a gameplan to squeeze out a win in a tough place to go to.”