Allister Coetzee has named another strong side to face the Pumas on Friday, he has resisted resting players considering the few that have been lost to injuries already. Changes to the starting team see a fairly light loose trio start in the form of Nick Koster, Nizaam Carr and Nick Fenton-Wells (who was EVERYWHERE against the Lions), we also see the Blitzbokke speedster Steven Hunt get a start on the wing. While Tiaan Liebenberg is given a start, and the captaincy, thanks to an injury to Deon Fourie.
Province will also travel with Wimpie van der Waldt and Stephan Greeff as cover for De Kock Steenkamp and Carr who have not been able to train today, if they fail to recover in time Quinn Roux and Tertius Daniller will take their places respectively with the two youngsters coming in on the bench, WP u21 coach John Dobson must be pulling his hair out with all the call ups affecting his team selections every week.
Most of you will notice that neither of the Springbok backline players Gio Aplon or Juan de Jongh feature, you can read into that what you will, but it seems fairly obvious that they will be heading to the World Cup, which means Marcel Brache makes his way back to the bench, Danie Poolman has been dropped down to the bench after he took a knock to the shoulder against the Lions and Louis Schreuder is given a chance on the bench in place of Nic Groom.
Starting XV:
15. Conrad Jantjes, 14. Steven Hunt, 13. Johann Sadie, 12. Tim Whitehead, 11. JJ Engelbrecht, 10. Demetri Catrakilis, 9. Dewaldt Duvenage, 8. Nick Koster, 7. Nizaam Carr, 6. Nick Fenton-Wells, 5. De Kock Steenkamp, 4. Hilton Lobberts, 3. Brok Harris, 2. Tiaan Liebenberg (C), 1. Steven Kitshoff
Reserves:
16. Siya Ntubeni, 17. Frans Malherbe, 18. Quinn Roux, 19. Tertius Daniller, 20. Louis Schreuder, 21. Marcel Brache, 22. Danie Poolman
Referee: Stuart Berry
Kick Off: Friday, 19:10 – Puma Stadium Witbank.
This Bok squad announcement may be losing its charm with all these CC team announcements. Aplon and de Jongh in the squad too.
Thanks Romes! I’m VERY excited about these youngsters.
@wpw (Comment 2) : I want to see more of this Quinn Roux guy, he is LARGE.
Also quite keen to see Steven Hunt on the run.
picking a B-side to go face the Pumas?
Clever move… let’s see how well it works out
@robdylan (Comment 5) : haha, don’t think Coetzee had a choice, all changes are injury enforced.
@molly (Comment 4) : who’s he? Another hobbit? Or is he reasonably-sized?
Fourie, Kolisi, Pieter Louw and Fondse all injured. Even Poolman was down as an injury concern earlier this week, not sure how De Kock got injured though, he wasn’t mentioned as having a niggle.
@molly (Comment 8) : de kock is there, though… he’s starting
@robdylan (Comment 7) : hobbit, 81kg’s and 179cm according to the SA rugby site.
@robdylan (Comment 9) : he’s technically bracketed, thanks for reading the whole arti
@molly (Comment 10) : wow… that’s not very big is it…
@robdylan (Comment 7) : I would’ve given Tshotsho Mbovane a go, he’s my new favourite (really hope he makes the step up one day).
@molly (Comment 11) : oh sorry
Man, I’ve never even heard some of these names! Stephan Greef? related to Sicknote?
@robdylan (Comment 14) : I know Daniller is related to the other cheetah lad, but don’t know anything about Stephan. Big lad 197km and 114kg’s, Etzebeth is still quite a bit taller, 203cm.
@molly (Comment 13) : Molly, I’m so bummed. I had a recording of Tshotso burning a Bulls player with his amazing step and wanted to youtube it but must have deleted it from my PVR. I also wish he’d get a run with the big boys.
For me Quinn Roux and Reniel Hugo are the 2 best players in u21 rugby this year so far.
Between these 2 locks, Nizaam and Scara Ntubeni (he looks desperately in need of conditioning does this hamburger king), thats the glue that makes the highly successful WP u21 pack stick.
http://blog.fscheetahs.co.za/2011/08/23/toyota-free-state-cheetahs-vs-gwk-griquas/
@beet (Comment 16) : I really do feel sorry for Dobson, although he must be doing something right if we’re more than happy to promote them to the senior team.
Only just realised its not gonna be televised, I was looking forward to seeing these youngsters play
@beet (Comment 16) : how do you manage to get stuff OFF your PVR and onto Youtube?
@robdylan (Comment 19) : I have a LG HDD dvd player. I don’t use the DSTV decoder. PVR is just a simpler term to use.
@beet (Comment 20) : oh gotcha