Prop Vincent Koch said the Sharks can expect a highly motivated Edinburgh outfit under the stewardship of former coach Sean Everitt when the teams clash on Saturday.
The Sharks host the Scottish outfit in round 13 of the Vodacom URC at Kings Park. The Durbanites climbed off the foot of the table to 14th spot with victory over Ulster last week, while Edinburgh slipped to sixth place after defeat at the DHL Stormers.
Everitt, who joined Edinburgh this season from the Vodacom Bulls, was sacked as Sharks head coach in 2022 after a disappointing run of form for the coastal team.
He returns to Durban having parted ways with the union he served for 15 years, and speaking in a Sharks conference on Tuesday, Koch believes the 53-year-old will “want to prove a point”.
“I can’t really speak about the exit of Sean because I wasn’t here,” Koch, who made his long-awaited Sharks debut off the bench last week, told reporters.
“[But] I’ve been part of teams and when I left, I had to play against them and of course I had extra motivation to perform against them. When he comes here, he will definitely want to prove a point.
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“He will psych his players up to a level where he wants it to be. At the end of the day, he wants a result as well, so if he can have a nice pre-game chat, he will throw that in there as well.”
Six SA-born players were included in Edinburgh’s 30-man tour squad to the Republic, including the dangerous Duhan van der Merwe as one of seven returning Scotland internationals.
“They rested most of their Scottish internationals so it’s going to be a completely different team to the one that played against the Stormers,” Koch added.
“For now, we want to deliver the best performance we can deliver. It’s going to be a tough game. They will have an international front row and they got an unbelievable loose trio as well.
“They got loads of international players and we know that it’s going to be a tough game, especially after their defeat to the Stormers. They are probably going to be angry and a little bit disappointed with their performance and they will want to rectify it against us.
“With Sean being the coach, he is going to come with extra motivation, but we are mainly going to focus on ourselves and we are going to try and give the best Sharks performance we possibly can.”
Photo: Ryan Hiscott/Getty Images
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