Sean Everitt calls on Edinburgh to maintain ‘positive energy’ in Challenge Cup

Sean Everitt has challenged Edinburgh to maintain their “positive energy” by progressing to the last eight of the EPCR Challenge Cup with victory over United Rugby Championship rivals Lions.

The men from the Scottish capital go into Friday night’s round-of-16 showdown at the Hive buoyed by a 38-5 league win over Dragons last week in which several of their big-hitters returned following Six Nations duty.

“We’ve put ourselves in a good position,” said Everitt. “It’s always good to take some momentum into a knockout game like this weekend. There’s a lot of positive energy around the camp.

“We had a lot of guys returning last week, that certainly helps the energy and the guys are really focused on the Lions on Friday.

“I think (playing in Europe) freshens things up from the URC because you get opportunities to play against teams that you probably wouldn’t play against. We went to Vannes, a beautiful town, and we got the opportunity to play against Bayonne, so there are teams you don’t normally play against, which is good to freshen up the guys.

“At the same time, it’s a competition that has got a bit of prestige to it and it is an opportunity for a trophy as well.

“We are playing the Lions, which is a URC team, this weekend. People will say it’s the same old, but it’s not. We played the Lions in the third round of the URC, it’s going to be really exciting.”

Ross McCann starts in place of Scotland wing Duhan van der Merwe, who is out until next month, while hooker Dave Cherry returns to the starting XV for the first time since starting each of Scotland’s five matches in the recent Six Nations.

Lions head to Edinburgh reeling from a wind-affected 42-0 URC defeat at Glasgow last Saturday in which all of the points came in the first half.

“It was a weird one in terms of a couple of very different-looking halves,” Everitt said of his opponents’ loss at Scotstoun. “They’ll all be disappointed with that loss, but I know how proud they are as a franchise and as a group of players and I know them quite well, so they’ll be looking to bounce back this weekend.”