Edinburgh Rugby have five league games to sort themselves out and claim a place in the all-important top eight of the United Rugby Championship. Three of them are at home, starting with Friday’s match with bottom club Dragons at Hive Stadium. On paper, it looks the easiest of their remaining fixtures but head coach Sean Everitt is taking no chances and has called in the cavalry. Six of his frontline Scotland players return as Edinburgh look to secure the bonus-point win they must surely deliver to reinvigorate their hopes of making the play-offs. Everitt’s side are 11th after last weekend’s last-gasp loss to Benetton in Italy, stranded on the wrong side of the mid-table divide in what is a heavily congested league. Eight points separate Cardiff in fifth place and Zebre in 15th but it is only the top eight who will participate in the end-of-season play-offs. Edinburgh missed out in 2023 and 2024 and a third successive failure would likely have consequences. James Lang, the club’s experienced centre, said this week that finishing outside the top eight again would be “unacceptable”. Everitt broadly agreed with the sentiment but batted away a question about the impact on his own future should Edinburgh again not make it. This is the coach’s second season at the helm and the club are still fighting on two fronts, even if they have struggled to put together a run of form. Last weekend’s loss to Benetton was a case in point. They led for the entire second half until the dramatic finale, which saw them concede a last-minute try to Alessandro Izekor following a late red card for Mosese Tuipulotu, the Edinburgh centre. The 21-18 defeat scuppered hopes of back-to-back away wins for the first time this season and did little to banish the notion that there is a maddening inconsistency about Everitt’s Edinburgh. The coach described the outcome in Treviso as “gut-wrenching” but denied it was a sign of something more troubling, ascribing the winning try to a simple mistake. “I wouldn't say we were mentally weak,” said Everitt. “We dropped the ball in the lineout. It's a skill error. It's not as though we capitulated. “We took a team that was fairly young to Treviso to play against a fully loaded Benetton team and nearly turned them over. Did we want the result? Of course we did. Did we perform well enough to get the result? Not over the 80 minutes. Maybe we performed well enough over 78. But there's a lot of positives we can take out of that.” The Dragons are the one team in the URC that can no longer make the play-offs but Everitt is taking no chances. Back into the team come star wingers Darcy Graham and Duhan van der Merwe, rested and recuperated after a Six Nations campaign in which each scored two tries. In the pack, fellow internationals Pierre Schoeman, Grant Gilchrist and Jamie Ritchie also return and there is a place on the bench for Scotland hooker Dave Cherry who has been carrying “a bit of a niggle”, according to the coach. Having these half-dozen internationals back for a game against the league’s bottom side may be akin to using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The Dragons have not won in the URC since the opening weekend of the season when they pipped the Ospreys 23-21. They have lost 12 in a row since but Everitt is wary of the Welsh visitors, with good reason perhaps: Edinburgh lost to previous basement dwellers Zebre in their last outing at Hive Stadium. “I don't see the Dragons as a weak team in the competition,” said Everitt. “Obviously, results haven't gone their way. Had they had a bit of luck at the weekend, they might have beaten Ulster. “It's not a team that can be taken lightly. For us, it's about putting in a good performance full stop at home, especially after what happened against Zebre here. “Talking of Zebre, they nearly got a win against the Sharks in Durban, who were also fully loaded, so this competition is really strong and the log shows that. “For us, it's about performance and that overrules everything else.” After the Dragons, Edinburgh will face the Sharks (at home), Zebre (away), Connacht (away) and Ulster (home) in their final four URC regular season games and Everitt reckons four wins from five would guarantee their place in the top eight. It’s a tall order for a club who have won just five from their first 13 fixtures. “It's so difficult to work out because it depends on other results as well but, obviously, the ideal situation is for us to win all five,” said the coach. “That will make life a lot easier and will certainly make us qualify. But I would presume four would be enough.” Tuipulotu is suspended following his red card in Treviso and he’ll also miss next week’s EPCR Challenge Cup tie against the Emirates Lions as part of a three-game ban which will be reduced to two on the successful completion of a World Rugby Coaching Intervention Programme to improve tackle technique. In Tuipulotu’s absence Lang shifts to inside-centre and Matt Currie switches from wing to 13. It’s all change in the front row, with Schoeman being joined by hooker Paddy Harrison and tighthead D’Arcy Rae. Boan Venter drops to the bench, Ewan Ashman is rested and Paul Hill is ruled out by a neck injury but should be available next weekend. Sam Skinner has also been rested for the Dragons game, opening the door for Gilchrist, while Ritchie comes into the second row in place of Ben Muncaster who is recovering from a concussion. Edinburgh Rugby v Dragons RFC (URC, Hive Stadium, Friday 7.35pm) Edinburgh: Wes Goosen; Darcy Graham, Matt Currie, James Lang, Duhan van der Merwe; Ross Thompson, Ben Vellacott (co-capt); Pierre Schoeman, Paddy Harrison, D’arcy Rae, Marshall Sykes, Grant Gilchrist (co-capt), Jamie Ritchie, Hamish Watson, Magnus Bradbury. Replacements: Dave Cherry, Boan Venter, Javan Sebastian, Glen Young, Freddy Douglas, Ali Price, Cammy Scott, Ross McCann. Dragons: Huw Anderson; Rio Dyer, Joe Westwood, Aneurin Owen (capt), Ashton Hewitt; Will Reed, Rhodri Williams; Rodrigo Martinez, Elliot Dee, Paula Latu, Joe Davies, Steve Cummins, Shane Lewis-Hughes, Harrison Keddie, Aaron Wainwright. Replacements: Brodie Coghlan, Dylan Kelleher-Griffiths, Nathan Evans, Barny Langton-Cryer, Taine Basham, Dane Blacker, Josh Thomas, Jared Rosser. Referee: Morne Ferreira (SARU).