Sibling rivalry at heart of Duhan van der Merwe's try quest as Edinburgh bid to tame Bulls

As Scotland’s record try-scorer Duhan van der Merwe bows to no-one when it comes to finishing prowess but the Edinburgh winger had to play second fiddle last season to his older brother of all people.

Akker van der Merwe, the Vodacom Bulls hooker, weighed in with 12 tries over the course of the United Rugby Championship campaign and only Johnny Matthews, the Glasgow Warriors scoring machine, got more. Duhan van der Merwe, who has topped the charts in years past, was way back in joint 82nd place with a meagre three.

It was an anomalous season for the winger who seemed to save his best try-scoring exploits for the national side. His hat-trick against England at Murrayfield was particularly memorable but there was also a double against Wales in Cardiff.

Edinburgh's Duhan van Der Merwe scored a try double in the 33-31 defeat by Leinster. (Photo by Paul Devlin / SNS Group)

Happily for Duhan, he has rediscovered his touch quickly with Edinburgh and scored a double in last Friday’s season opener against Leinster. It wasn’t enough to prevent a narrow defeat and the player himself feels there is a lot more to come.

“As I always say, it is my job to finish those opportunities off and I did that,” he said. “But I wouldn't say I am too happy with my game. I can be a lot better. That is on me, to find ways of getting on the ball more. I feel like if I can do that, I can get some gain line and line breaks, so there is more to come. It is very exciting.”

A spot of sibling rivalry might spur him on and he is set to be in direct opposition to Akker on Saturday when Edinburgh take on the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld.

“It’s always nice to come back and play in South Africa,” said Duhan. “I’m able to see my family which is very special, and obviously the chance to play against my brother. He didn't play against us last year in Edinburgh, so if selected it will be pretty cool to go up against him. I think I am 2-0 up against him at the moment [in terms of tries this season]. I played against him first in 2019 for Edinburgh against Sale and we won that one, so it was pretty cool.”

Van der Merwe’s lack of tries was part of a wider problem at Edinburgh last season. Moves were made over the summer to fix it, with the appointment of Scott Mathie as attack coach and the recruitment of players such as Ross Thompson and Mosese Tuipulotu. The return from injury of Darcy Graham will also help and van der Merwe has high hopes for the new campaign.

“It’s pretty exciting at the moment because last year we were struggling for numbers a bit,” he said. “We had a lot of players playing out of position - poor Matt Currie had to play wing quite a lot.

“I guess we’re very lucky this season. There’s a lot of competition, and the exciting thing about that is you can see players getting better week in and week out because everyone wants to have that starting position.

“So that’s brilliant for us. We’ve got some really exciting backs and we believe that if we can get the ball out wide more, hopefully we can score more tries. We’re working really hard at that and hopefully this weekend we can pull the trigger a bit more and the wingers and 13 and 15 can get a bit more ball.”