Preview: Southern Kings vs Cheetahs

Feb 12 • General News, Super Rugby • 1924 Views • Comments Off on Preview: Southern Kings vs Cheetahs

The Southern Kings are set to face the Toyota Cheetahs tonight, in their final warm-up match at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth, before the start of their 2016 Vodacom Super Rugby campaign.
The Southern Kings, who have had two pre season friendlies against the NMMU Madibaz a fortnight ago and SWD Eagles last week, will have one last opportunity to test a possible starting XV before they face the Cell C Sharks in their opener in two weeks time.

With very little separating the two teams at Outeniqua Park in George last week, the Southern Kings scored a second half try and a penalty to secure a 22 – 16 win. Despite the victory, the visitors picked up two injuries, Edgar Marutlulle suffered a cut to his ear while Jacobie Adriaanse sustained a concussion as both are ruled out for this evening’s game.

The Cheetahs kicked off their pre season preparation with a win against the Bulls in Harare. The team from Bloemfontein out scored the Bulls 4 tries to 1. The powerful Cheetahs scrum dominated the Bulls last week, which also resulted in two penalty tries as the game ended 28 – 10.

Three former EP Kings players in Sergeal Petersen, Charles Marais and Paul Schoeman will make the trip down to Port Elizabeth with the Cheetahs to face their former team mates.

The Southern Kings were forced to make three late changes as Malcolm Jaer replaced Jurgen Visser at fullback, JP du Plessis moved off the bench to replace Jaer on the wing and Lukhanyo Am replaced du Plessis on the bench.

“This is our first Super Rugby team that we are playing against, and we want to see how the team performs against a super rugby side,” said Southern Kings head coach, Deon Davids.

Davids said the game against the SWD Eagles on Friday last week had been beneficial in testing a few combinations and seeing some of the players that were coming back from injury on the field.

“It is always nice to win, but for us it was good to get the match exercise under our belt and also see guys who haven’t played in a while come through,” he said.

Davids said the team would be focusing on their set pieces, and would be looking at retaining possession from set pieces through the phases.

He said the team would also be looking at how to capitalise on opportunities and convert them into points.

Kickoff is at 7pm.

Southern Kings:

15 Malcolm Jaer 14 Luzuko Vulundlu 13 Stefan Watermeyer 12 Shane Gates 11 JP du Plessis 10 Elgar Watts 9 Ntando Kebe 8 Jacques Engelbrecht 7 Thembelani Bholi 6 Chris Cloete 5 JC Astle 4 Steven Sykes (c) 3 Tom Botha 2 Martin Bezuidenhout 1 Schalk Ferreira

Substitutes:

16 Sti Sithole 17 Martin Ferreira 18 Vukile Sofisa 19 Cornell Hess 20 CJ Velleman 21 Stephan Willemse 22 Junior Pokomela 23 Leighton Eksteen 24 Theuns Kotze 25 Lukhanyo Am 26 Siyanda Grey

Cheetahs:

15 Sergeal Petersen 14 Maphutha Dolo 13 Francois Venter (c) 12 William Small-Smith 11 Raymond Rhule 10 Sias Ebersohn 9 Shaun Venter 8 Niell Jordaan 7 Uzair Cassiem 6 Boom Prinsloo 5 Lodewyk de Jager 4 Carl Wegner 3 Maks van Dyk 2 Torsten van Jaarsveld 1 Charles Marais

Substitutes:

16 Jacques du Toit 17 Danie Mienie 18 Luan de Bruin 19 Reniel Hugo 20 Hilton Lobberts 21 Paul Schoeman 22 Henco Venter 23 Tian Meyer 24 Fred Zeilinga 25 Michael van der Spuy 26 Clayton Blommetjies