Edinburgh Rugby are confident that Lions winger Duhan van der Merwe will be fit to face the Bulls in the United Rugby Championship quarter-final in South Africa on Saturday - but there are concerns around their options in the second row. Van der Merwe, 29, has not played since limping off in the 11th minute of the home win over the Dragons in March. Scotland’s record try-scorer injured his ankle but has been able to train this week. Edinburgh are due to leave for South Africa on Tuesday and head coach Sean Everitt expects van der Merwe to be part of the travelling party. “Duhan will be travelling with us,” said Everitt. “He came through training well on Monday, he's got one more training session to do on Tuesday. But as we stand right now, he'll be on the plane. “Duhan's a world-class player as an international. He will bring a wealth of experience to the team. The team will take a lot of confidence from him [just being there]. We just hope that he pulls through on Tuesday and he can get to his best as soon as possible.” Everitt is expecting a huge physical battle against the Bulls who were defeated by Glasgow Warriors in last season’s final and there are question marks over the availability of Edinburgh locks Grant Gilchrist and Glen Young. Gilchrist, the club co-captain, has missed recent matches with a hamstring issue while Young’s wife is due to give birth. “Gilco will do his final fitness test to see if he's able to play the game on Saturday,” said Everitt. “We can't take a player with us that might not play, so we'll make a final call at lunchtime on Tuesday. “Glen Young is waiting for his wife to give birth to their third child, so there's a question mark around his availability for the trip to South Africa. We've got a flight booked for him on Thursday night. And should all be okay, then hopefully he'll join us on Friday.” Edinburgh started with Marshall Sykes and Sam Skinner in the second row in the recent wins over Connacht and Ulster and the pair are both available to face the Bulls. If Gilchrist and Young don’t make it, the contingency plan is to have No 8 Magnus Bradbury providing cover at lock. There are also injury problems at scrum-half. Charlie Shiel has been ruled out for the remainder of the season after suffering a blow to the kidney in the latter stages of the win over Ulster which sealed Edinburgh’s place in the last eight. With co-captain Ben Vellacott already out with a foot injury, there will be a call-up for Conor McAlpine who will provide back-up to Ali Price. McAlpine, 21, has had one outing for Edinburgh’s top team, as a replacement in this season’s Challenge Cup match against Gloucester, but he did play for the second string in their recent match against the Georgian side Black Lion. “We've got Ali and we've got young Conor McAlpine, who will be covering us on the bench on the weekend,” said Everitt. “Conor had a really good runout against Black Lion last week, so it's an exciting time for him. He also did the business for us against Gloucester, so we're not too concerned about him.” Edinburgh lost 22-16 to the Bulls in the URC at Loftus Versfeld back in September but beat them 34-28 at home in the Challenge Cup quarter-finals last month and Everitt is looking forward to locking horns with them once more. “The Bulls are a massive threat up front,” said the coach, who had a spell working with them prior to his Edinburgh appointment. “What we have at our disposal now, apart from Grant Gilchrist, is the same as what we went with against them the last time. We know that it's going to be a set-piece battle, it always is. Especially at Loftus. “I think we'll all agree that the effort that we put in that area of the game has been really good over the last six to seven weeks. We've mixed it with the best. The Lions were certainly good in that area, as well as the Sharks and Bath. And I thought our performance in those areas were admirable. We'd like to continue on that, even though we are challenged in certain positions.”