Kevin Utterson is stopped by Andrew Williams

Edinburgh grew careless and Caerphilly burst back into the picture when scrum-half Alan Chiltern wriggled through, Stuart Lawrence converting.

The home troops replied almost immediately with a Hodge penalty when Welsh prop Matt Bolton was sin-binned for killing the ball on the ground.

Despite being a man down, it was Caerphilly who produced a stirring end to the half and they stunned Edinburgh with another touchdown through wing Ken Morris.

The Castlemen boosted their chances again just three minutes after the restart when Lawrence slotted a 35-metre penalty.

In a dramatic finale, Hodge claimed three more points from close in after Geraint Evans was yellow-carded for a high challenge on Chris Paterson.

But again the Welshmen responded positively to losing a man and Lawrence skipped over in the corner to close the gap to a single point.

Then came Hodge's drop-double in the last five minutes to snuff out the brave Caerphilly challenge.

Edinburgh: Chris Paterson; Craig Joiner, Marcus Di Rollo, Kevin Utterson, Conan Sharman; Duncan Hodge, Iain Fairley; Allan Jacobsen, Steve Scott, Craig Smith, Matt Jolly, Richard Metcalfe, Don Mackinnon (capt), Graham Dall, Martin Leslie.
Replacements: Carlo Di Ciacca, Gavin Whittingham, Andrew Dall, Simon Taylor, Mike Blair, Calvin Howarth, Derrick Lee.

Caerphilly: S Tuipulotu; R G Jones, G Evans, D Hawkins (capt), T Taufahema/K Morris; S Lawrence, A Chiltern; I Jones, D Geraghty, C Fitzpatrick, N Watkins, M Workman, B Watkins, S Grainger, A Williams.
Replacements: A Jacobs, L Richards, M Bolton, D Davies, G Jones, T Marsden, D Colclough.