Wes Goosen believes Edinburgh are on an upwards trajectory as they return to the United Rugby Championship play-offs after an absence of three years. The squad flew out to South Africa on Tuesday for Saturday’s quarter-final against the Bulls and it’s a sort of homecoming for Goosen who was born in East London but emigrated to New Zealand with his family at the age of four. There will be some relatives at the match at Loftus Versfeld as Edinburgh look to beat the Bulls again having got the better of them at home in the Challenge Cup quarter-finals last month. “It gives us the confidence it can be done,” said Goosen. “For the first 60 minutes of the game here in Edinburgh, we really dominated and then we let them back in. But if we do what we do, we push them and stay in the hard moments, I think we can go toe to toe with the Bulls. It’s not going to be easy. They are a very physical team with a lot of superstars, but you look at our team – we’ve got good players as well.” Goosen has been excellent for Edinburgh and was a deserved winner of their player of the season award. The campaign hasn’t always gone smoothly but a run to the semi-finals of the Challenge Cup followed by important bonus-point wins over Connacht and Ulster in the URC points to progress in what is head coach Sean Everitt’s second season in charge. “The performances we have put in over the last four or five weeks show our trajectory is going up,” said Goosen. “We are showing we can compete with the best.” The Bulls, under the guidance of World Cup-winning coach Jake White, were beaten finalists in the URC in 2022 and 2024 and will be favourites on Saturday but Goosen is relishing the chance to pull off an upset in his homeland. “I do love going back to South Africa,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of family members there. A lot of them live in Pretoria so they will come out and watch, which will be nice. I think there’ll be a mix of strips – half-Bulls, half Wes Edinburgh.”