The pair will meet on Saturday night in Kovalev’s hometown of Chelyabinsk, as Yarde bids to win the WBO light-heavyweight world title.
If he is to cause an upset at the Traktor Sport Palace, he will have to pull off a special performance masterminded by trainer Tunde Ajayi.
Kovalev has only lost three times in his career, with two of those inflicted by former undefeated world champion Ward, before he was stopped by Eleider Alvarez a year ago.
S.O.G beat the 36-year-old twice in Las Vegas when they clashed in 2016 and 2017 and both performances will offer Yarde plenty of inspiration ahead of this weekend’s contest.
However, Ward has raised his doubts about the Londoner and the experience he is up against given that Kovalev has challenged for a world title in each of his last 15 bouts.
“I liked what I saw in Kovalev’s last fight, and I saw the confidence from Yarde and his coach, but they can feel the way they feel, I’ve been hearing that stuff my whole career,” he told BT Sport.
“The Kovalev fight is going to be harder than they realise; at the highest level it doesn’t matter how well you do mitt work, or how big your muscles are, you have to show that you can fight, that you can take it and dish it to, that you’ve got the conditioning and the IQ.
“Your coaches have got show they can perform under pressure too; there will be a lot of pressure in Russia.
“I’m the guy who shows a crack in the door for a person to show up and be great, but I’m not a fan of a guy facing C-level guys and making a name of himself then jumping to an A-minus guy
“I’m a fan of working your way up slowly and at the right time making the step up.
“I’m not sure he’s fought the necessary guys to prepare him for Sergey Kovalev and I think Kovalev is going to stop him late.”
This will be the first time Yarde has challenged for a world title having only made his professional debut in 2015.
He stopped Travis Reeves back in March last time out to claim his 17th knockout from 18 wins.
Now he is confident he can use his youth to his advantage against the ageing Russian.
“This is a fight of experience and youth,” Yarde said.
“Experience plays a part but how you perform on the night is what matters.
“Where I’ve come from, I rose very quickly to be here. I’m happy to be at this level and I’m going to make the most of it.
“I’m going to focus on myself, be the best I can be and get the knockout victory, because that’s what I feel I need to do to win the fight.”