Western Province have announced their team to take on the unbeaten Lions at Newlands, the only change to the starting XV sees Pieter Louw come in for Rohan Kitshoff who has joined up with his International team Namibia for their World Cup preparations.
Louw’s place on the bench has been taken by UCT captain Nic Fenton-Wells, and the injury to lock Adriaan Fondse sees the promising u21 Quinn Roux possibly having a go for the seniors later in the game. While WP will be very excited to have Springboks Juan de Jongh and Gio Aplon to call on in the dying minutes where they can hopefully run the Lions ragged. Tiaan Liebenberg is kept on the bench by the other captain Deon Fourie with Allister Coetzee still seeming uncertain about who he should settle on for the important duties, perhaps waiting for Duane Vermeulen to make his return from injury, even though that is still about four weeks away.
Starting XV:
15. Conrad Jantjes, 14. Danie Poolman, 13. Johann Sadie, 12. Tim Whitehead, 11. JJ Engelbrecht, 10. Demetri Catrakilis, 9. Dewaldt Duvenage, 8. Nick Koster, 7. Siya Kolisi, 6. Pieter Louw, 5. De Kock Steenkamp, 4. Hilton Lobberts, 3. Brok Harris, 2. Deon Fourie (C) , 1. Steven Kitshoff
Reserves:
16. Tiaan Liebenberg, 17. Frans Malherbe, 18. Quinn Roux, 19. Nick Fenton-Wells, 20. Nic Groom, 21. Juan De Jongh, 22. Gio Aplon
Referee: Marius Jonker
Kick Off: Friday, 19:00 – DHL Newlands.
When I first saw this article I thought you might be referring to hilton lobberts. But I see he’s starting
Do you think that Duane is seen as a future WP/Stormers captain?
Pieter Louw to have a blinder.
Quin Roux is a machine like etsebeth he loves inflicting pain haha.WP have alot of depth at lock so much talent.There is one thing that impresses me about wp junior players they are stepping up to senior rugby and they are playing without a sense of fear or failure.Admittedly bulls junior players are doing the opposite they are failing to step up which hurts.
@Salmonoid (Comment 2) : yup, it was announced preseason, even though he was injured… It was supposed to be him as cappie and Dewaldt as vice.
I thought they would struggle to replace ulrich beyers but steyl is an amazing talent.I wonder if Heyneke meyer would be interested in signing lionel cronje.From what ive seen the greek and gary van aswegen are ahead of him in the pecking order.
Sllub and Lions teams has also been released.
Lions to lose their 1st game.
@JarsonX (Comment 8) : I hope so!!!
Coetzee has this wrong… starting Fourie ahead of Liebenberg in ANY GAME WHATSOEVER is simply crazy.
@robdylan (Comment 10) : You speak the truth.
@robdylan (Comment 10) :
I agree.
Tiaan is a beast of a player. Deon is too light for top flight rugby imho.
@robdylan (Comment 10) : Totally agree, Fourie is an impact player… Liebenberg is sooooo much better at the set pieces.
@wpw (Comment 12) : liebenberg can be a penalty machine
and lets not forget the constant swapping of captains doesn’t help the cause either.
The game turned for Province when Liebenberg came on… the Sharks had been having a field day upfront with Fourie there.
Plum should have countered by bringing Cooper on earlier
An update for the Fantasy League peeps:
Koster has been ruled out, new loose trio is:
6. Nic Fenton-Well, 7. Siya Kolisi, 8. Pieter Louw
Another awesem u21 player comes in on the bench.. Nizaam Carr!!!
@molly (Comment 17) : Lions by 7 now
@robdylan (Comment 18) : yup… Less than ideal. Although, I didn’t think you rated Koster at all
@molly (Comment 19) : I don’t rate him much, but he’s a better number 8 than the child-frightener
Nick Koster has been withdrawn from this Friday’s game vs. the Lions at DHL Newlands, with a bicep injury. The injury is not considered long term and he will be assessed again next week.
Nick Fenton-Wells moves into the starting line up at 6, with Pieter Louw shifting to 8. Nizaam Carr moves up from the DHL WP u21 team and provides cover from the bench in jersey 19.
Gonna be a cracker of a match…
@Zibbie (Comment 21) : didn’t Molly just say that in comment 17?
@robdylan (Comment 23) : I think I summarised it better
@molly (Comment 24) : I agree
It will be interesting to see what happens in the rugby life of Demetri Catrakilis next year.
Once the likes of Gary vA, Lionel C and Chris C are injury free + if Peter G returns???
Personally I think Demetri gets better with every game and if I were the Bulls, I’d think carefully about trade Louis F and Maritz B and throw in Francois B for free to acquire Demetri’s services. Not that Province wud want these Bulls youngsters but Demetri certainly has in a much shorter time proven to be a better player than the 3.
@Zibbie (Comment 21) : That makes a quick but lightweight l/fwd trio. They could get bossed around at the ruck.
with that very inexperienced loose trio I would most probably pip the Lions…maybe even outside bonus point category…
Even if De Jongh comes on…the Lions centre’s pack more than enough punch to stop him….especially if he plays anything like he has been playing this year…
Aplon on the other hand can score tries from nowhere…so with him coming on with fresh legs late in the game could cause some scares for the LIONS…
Read about this change JUST after I did my sooper bru picks… not happy about that.
@beet (Comment 26) : Don’t think we’ll be able to keep them all
But reckon they’re grooming Cronje to be our future 15, not 100% sure how he feels about that.