On the day Toulouse and their coach Guy Noves reached their 125th game in the Heineken Cup they fond themselves up against a side that refused to lie down and as a result slipped to their second defeat in 12 European clashes with Edinburgh.

The home of Scottish rugby was fired-up at the start and jumping by the end as Greig Laidlaw led his side superbly to bag 14 points and the man of the match award on a sensational day for the game north of the border.

“We struggled in the first half but the crowd got behind us and we are in the semi-finals – happy days!” said Laidlaw.

“It was great to see so many people turn out to support us and now we have given ourselves a chance of doing something very special. This is a huge day for the club and for the players. These are the games we all want to play in and we love playing at Murrayfield.”

Edinburgh got off to a dream start with a try within two minutes of the kick-off. Skipper Greig Laidlaw hoisted high into the Toulouse 22 and Yannick Jauzion wasn’t up the task as he was challenged.

The ball went loose two metres out and Mike Blair snapped it up and rolled out of a tackle and over the line. Nigel Owens went upstairs to the TMO to check everything was alright and a UK Heineken Cup quarter-final record crowd of 37,881 let out an approving roar when he gave the try.

Laidlaw added the conversion and the Edinburgh nerves were calmed on the biggest club occasion of their players’ lives. That score gave four-time champions Toulouse something to chew on and it took them some time to get to grips with the ferocity of the Scottish challenge.

But the French giants weren’t in their record 13 Heineken Cup for nothing and them somehow managed to edge their noses in front by half-time thanks in no small measure to the ill-discipline of the home side.

After that wonder start they conceded two penalties to Lionel Beauxis before gifting Toulouse a massive advantage by having two players sent to the sin-bin within three minutes of each other. First to see yellow was loose head prop Allan Jacobsen, who senselessly tackled a Timoci Matanavou within 10 metres when he tried to get away with a quick tap at a penalty.

Minutes later Scottish international openside Ross Rennie put his hands into a ruck in front of his posts. That allowed Beauxis to give Toulouse the lead at 9-7 on 28 minutes and then Fijian wing Matanavou conjured up a moment of magic.

He took Blair’s box kick on his own 10 metre line, cut back towards the Edinburgh forwards and simply ploughed his way through them before stretching his legs and streaking over in the right corner for his eighth Heineken Cup try of the season, a Toulouse record.

That made it 14-7 to the visitors, but Laidlaw gave his side a huge lift by dropping a neat goal on the stroke of half-time shortly after Jacobsen had been restored to the side. Given the numerical advantage Toulouse had enjoyed, a four point gap wasn’t too bad for Edinburgh coach to take on board in his half-time team talk.

Whatever he said, or whatever went into the tea or oranges, it certainly worked because Toulouse didn’t score in the second half and played much of the game on the back foot. This time it was their turn to fall foul of the referee and they coughed up six penalties and a yellow card to Williams Servat.

Penalites from Laidlaw on 46 and 51 minutes regained the lead for the home side and they kept on playing positively right to the end. They smashed down the Toulouse attackers whenever they threatened and it was only right and proper that man of the match Laidlaw should have the honour of stroking over the match clinching score with the last kick of the game.

Cue unprecedented sounds and scenes for a Scottish club rugby match at Murrayfield. Edinburgh march on to the Heineken Cup semi-finals for the first time in their history and neither Munster nor Ulster will be relishing tackling them at the Aviva Stadium.