Rested after a four-week break, the Isuzu Southern Kings will regroup on Thursday determined to improve on a dismal first-half showing in the Guinness PRO14.
Just one win from 10 outings has left the Kings at the bottom of Conference B and desperate for vital log points.
In their last game of 2018, the Kings were pipped 22-19 by Benetton Treviso at the Madibaz Stadium in Port Elizabeth on December 1.
Kings head coach Deon Davids said he would press the reset button in the team’s bid to banish memories of a difficult start to the season.
The Kings are planning to hit the ground running when they face Edinburgh in Scotland on January 5.
“We will regroup on December 27 and the team will train until December 31, before we climb on the plane for Edinburgh on January 2,” Davids said.
“Once we arrive in Scotland, we will just have a captain’s run on that side before our match at Murrayfield.
“We must just build going forward now. Hopefully the injured guys will be back in January so we can look forward to a full field of players at training.
“The Kings need everyone in the second half because it is a tough programme. We need to step up from the first game of 2019 in Scotland.
“In our postmortem of the first half of the season, we will look at what we have done well and where we need to improve. For us it will be a restart when we come back in January and it will be totally new,” the coach added.