Last year’s surprise defeat in Port Elizabeth still “really sticks in the stomach” of Edinbrugh Rugby as they welcome the Kings to BT Murrayfield looking to press down on the pedal in their Guinness PRO14 campaign.
Edinburgh’s play-off hopes were hammered by the 25-21 defeat almost a year ago to the lowly regional side from South Africa, which ended up being a major reason why the capital side missed out on the PRO14 play-offs.
The Kings have won away at last in the competition with a stunning victory at Ospreys this season, but Edinburgh have picked a powerful looking team, with John Barclay returning after a concussion issue, Matt Scott starting in the centre while Blair Kinghorn and Duhan van der Merwe are also picked.
“We feel as though the Kings are an improved side from last season,” said defence coach Callum MacRae. “They have an experienced coaching team now with Swys de Bruin coming in as their attack coach.
“He has been with the Springboks recently and Nic Groom has spoken very highly about his input when they were at the Lions together.
“If I’m really honest, the thing that’s really stuck in my stomach this week is how I felt, and how the squad felt, over there in Port Elizabeth last year when we lost that fixture.
“I keep reiterating that these games are as important as any others in the PRO14 season – you get the same points for them and it’s one we knew we let slip last year.”
The strength in depth that Edinburgh have had this season allows the coaching team to feel confident about any time they field, added MacRae.
“I think the whole squad’s contributed really well and I can’t see there being complacency because there’s a real drive in the group just now,” he said.
“The international windows hit us hard last year in terms of our push to make the play-offs, but we’ve given ourselves a really good opportunity this year while the World Cup was going on by having guys with a year more experienced coming in and doing the jersey justice.
“We know what it’s going to take with a tightly packed conference on our side. We have to keep knocking teams off week-in, week-out otherwise the other teams in the conference will.”
MacRae is happy to see Matt Scott back and performing, but puts that down wholly to the player’s attitude.
“When Matt came back to the club he was still trying to improve as a player,” said the coach. “Obviously defence is an area that I take charge of and I’ve been really, really impressed by him this season concerning the principles that we hammer into the guys in the backline and what we look for.
“I think there’s been a marked changed in his behaviour and the consistency of the work that he does there has improved, hopefully the national selectors see that and will pay credit to his club form in that respect.
“Matt’s one of these guys who’s a really strong responder to some elements of the training that you do with him. He’ll put on lean muscle mass twice as quickly as some guys.
“If more Scottish lads had his genetics in relation to training response we’d be in a really good place, but I think he is a really functional playing weight at the moment.
“His consistency and repeated efforts have shown that, especially for that 20-25 minutes against Glasgow last week.”
Edinburgh team: (vs Kings, Murrayfield, ko 7.45 pm)
Blair Kinghorn; Eroni Sau, James Johnstone, Matt Scott, Duhan van der Merwe; Jaco van der Walt, Henry Pyrgos; Jamie Bhatti, Mike Willemse, WP Nel; Lewis Carmichael, Grant Gilchrist; Magnus Bradbury, John Barclay, Nick Haining.
Replacements: Dave Cherry, Pierre Schoeman, Simon Berghan, Ben Toolis, Luke Crosbie, Charlie Shiel, Simon Hickey, Mark Bennett.
