Isuzu Southern Kings team to face Leinster Rugby

Feb 21 • General News, Guinness Pro14 • 1004 Views • Comments Off on Isuzu Southern Kings team to face Leinster Rugby

Ulrich Beyers will earn his first starting berth for the Isuzu Southern Kings when the side takes on Guinness PRO14 defending champions, Leinster Rugby, in a Round 16 clash at the RDS Arena in Dublin on Friday night.

The 28-year-old fullback, who has come off the bench four times for the Port Elizabeth side, will earn his first start as he replaces Masixole Banda in a rotational change to the Isuzu Southern Kings line-up.

Banda, who has started in all 15 Isuzu Southern Kings games played so far this season, will be on the bench.
Veteran scrumhalf Sarel Pretorius will also be getting his first Isuzu Southern Kings start in the No9 jersey as he rotates with Stefan Ungerer, who will provide cover from the bench this week.

“From a player-management perspective, we are rotating Masixole Banda and Ulrich Beyers. Banda has started all the matches so far, and now we are excited to see Ulrich in action and how his experience and height can be used as a factor in our back three,” Isuzu Southern Kings Head Coach, Deon Davids, explained the changes.

“Sarel Pretorius has been good from the bench and patiently waited for his opportunity. We have decided to reward him this week, with Stefan Ungerer going to the bench.”

The Isuzu Southern Kings will this week start without captain, JC Astle, who will also be on the bench.

His spot in the second row will be taken by Stephan Greeff while hooker, Michael Willemse, will assume the captaincy role for the Leinster clash.

Another change in the forwards clash will see flanker Henry “Bakkies” Brown returning to the starting XV, exchanging spots with Stephan de Wit, who falls out of the match-23 squad.

Former Junior Springbok prop Alulutho Tshakweni will get another spot in the starting XV as he rotates with veteran Schalk Ferreira, who will provide cover from the bench.

“Our captain, JC Astle, and centre, Tertius Kruger both struggled with a bout of flu this week and missed out on a few training sessions as a result. On medical advice, they were not considered in the starting line-up for this week,” explained Davids.

“We are fortunate to have Michael Willemse taking over the captaincy role – something that is not strange or new to him. He is part of a good leadership group within the team.

“It was always our plan to rotate Stephan de Wit and Brandon Brown on this tour. Stephan was solid in his performance last week, while Bakkies was very good before his injury. We are fortunate to have both of them as replacements for the suspended CJ Velleman.”

The Isuzu Southern Kings are expecting a hard match against the defending Guinness PRO14 and European champions this week.

Davids has taken stock of his side’s shortcomings from last weekend’s defeat to Munster and indicated that his charges are aware of what is expected from them.

“We are far from being happy with the amount of penalties and cards we conceded, and we kept that in mind with our discussion around the match-23 for this week,” said the head coach.

“The players know clearly where they stand and in what areas of their game we seek improvements.

“It was encouraging to see a good start against Munster – we were quite physical and created a lot of momentum, however we were also our own enemy by giving the momentum away at crucial times.”

The match will kick off at 21h55.

Isuzu Southern Kings

15 Ulrich Beyers
14 Yaw Penxe
13 Meli Rokoua
12 Berton Klaasen
11 Bjorn Basson
10 Bader Pretorius
9 Sarel Pretorius

1 Alulutho Tshakweni
2 Michael Willemse (C)
3 De-Jay Terblanche
4 Stephan Greeff
5 Andries Van Schalkwyk
6 Henry Brown
7 Martinus Burger
8 Ruaan Lerm

Substitutes

16 Alandre Van Rooyen
17 Schalk Ferreira
18 Pieter Scholtz
19 John-Charles Astle
20 Andisa Ntsila
21 Stefan Ungerer
22 Tertius Kruger
23 Masixole Banda