Venter had spoken previously about qualifying to play for Scotland through residency and was set to pass the five-year requirement ahead of the upcoming Six Nations, but understandably jumped at the opportunity to switch allegiance back to the country of his birth when he received a call-up from Rassie Erasmus to make his South Africa debut against Georgia in July.
There is now a very good chance that he will disappear off on international duty again during the Autumn, although Everitt was non-committal about whether the player would be released for the Springbok’ matches against Japan on 1st November and Wales on 29th November which have both been scheduled outside World Rugby’s official Test window.
“He’s excited with where he is because earlier in the year he would never have thought that this opportunity would have arrived,” said Everitt. “It’s surreal in the way that he went in and ended up winning the Rugby Championship, which South Africa under Rassie has only won three times, so it’s not often that you get that opportunity.
“It’s great for him and I’m sure he’ll come back a better player. And he can pass the knowledge that he’s gained onto the rest of the squad and particularly the youngsters around him.”
“There’s obviously the November Tests coming up and I see South Africa have two of their games outside of the Test window, so as long as we’ve got league games … that’ll be a discussion later!” Everitt added. Edinburgh don’t have a game on the first of those dates, but they are due to host Ospreys on the same day as the Wales game.
The capital men were left kicking their heels at the weekend when their home match against Ulster on Friday night was postponed due to the impact of Storm Amy. It was extra frustrating because they were desperate for a chance to exorcise some of the demons of their opening match of this URC campaign which was a frustrating away loss to Zebre.
“We prepared really well for the game on Friday night and I think it’s disappointing for the guys that they weren’t able to perform in front of their home fans, which was, I believe, a sellout,” agreed Everitt.
“But I think COVID has taught us how to deal with these disruptions. The guys are pretty resilient with regards to that. So, we’ve got to pretend that that game’s happened and that we played, and we move on to the next one. It’s a different opposition, different venue, away from home – and Munster is a tough challenge in Cork. So, yeah, the guys are excited about that on Friday night.”
“I think the players will have enjoyed their weekend, although we did bring them in yesterday [Sunday] for a training session,” he added. “That was planned way before because of the number of Friday games we have which does limit your training time during the week. So, we needed a full week of training. And this was the week, thankfully, for us [to come in on Sunday, so it’s actually worked out quite well.
“But, yes, our guys are motivated to do well. It was the same opposition last year which was the turnaround in that season. And there’s a lot of belief within this group, even though we didn’t get the result in round one. There’s been a lot of growth and there’s a lot of new faces and fresh faces and youngsters coming through, so there’s an exciting energy within this group.”
Everitt added that he will not simply pick the same match-day squad as he named for the Ulster game, with a number of previously unavailable players coming back into the mix this week.
“We’ve planned these five weeks quite meticulously with regards to selection because it’s important that we do rotate our group within these five rounds to give everyone a decent opportunity to get some rhythm for selection,” he said. “Going forward, there’s the November Test series coming up as well as 10 weeks in a row in December and January including in the European Cup, so it’s important for us to try and rotate our group and we have planned it that way.
“There might be guys who were named in the starting line-up last week – not many – who are not included this week and we’ve also got guys that are returning from injury, which we’ve also planned because we need to get them on the field.
“Cammy Scott is available for selection this week [after recovering from a hamstring issue]. With Ross Thompson [toe] it depends how he gets through this week but looking more like Cardiff [in three weeks’ time] than Benetton [in two weeks’ time]. We’re hoping that Paul Hill [calf] will be available this week for selection – once again, it’s just how he gets through his load today, so we need to be sensitive around that.
“Luke Crosbie [hamstring] is unavailable for selection this week, but Callum Hunter-Hill [back] has been training well with us, Dylan Richardson has gone through two full weeks of training now, so hopefully he’ll be available for selection and Ben Muncaster was out on the field last week doing his return to play, so we do have some guys returning from injury.”