Edinburgh must bounce back for two massive matches in South Africa, says Boan Venter

However, the prop admitted yesterday that the two forthcoming games in his native South Africa – against the Sharks in Durban on Saturday and then the Lions in Johannesburg seven days later – are “massive” for his team as they try to get back into the top four of the URC.

“I think it’s important for us to just keep focus and try and keep building - keeping the momentum that we’ve had thus far,” Venter said after squad training at the Zimbali resort just north of Durban. “It’s been a rough couple of weeks for us, but the guys are really motivated.

“We know why we’re here and we’d like to go away with match points. We came here to do a job and we’ll do that to the best of our ability.

“It’s important for us how we stand up after the fall we had against Glasgow last weekend,” he continued, referring to last Friday’s 30-17 defeat at Scotstoun in the first leg of this season’s 1872 Cup. “So these two games are massive for us. We know how important it is to try to build momentum again in this competition and keep racking up the points.”

One glance at the URC table is enough to demonstrate just how important it is for Edinburgh to make sure they return from South Africa with something to show for their efforts. Having been top of the heap just a few weeks ago, Mike Blair’s team are now down in fifth, and could fall a further place should they lose to the Sharks, who are just three points behind them and with a game in hand.

Blair insisted at the start of this week that a top-four place - which would mean a home quarter-final in the end-of-season play-offs - was still the aim for his team. He also predicted that we would see all the leading contenders take points off each other in the coming weeks, and that it was unlikely that