The final match of the first full weekend of Super Rugby takes us to the start of a new chapter in Super Rugby as the Kings play their first game of Super Rugby at the Nelson Mandela Stadium in Port Elizabeth.
The Kings may have not had the best preseason in terms of losses to smaller teams and player injuries, but tonight is when they have to do the talking, when they take on the Force in what should be an interesting encounter.
The Force come off a loss to the Brumbies last weekend, and will want to take full advantage of the new franchise in the series, a position they were in just 5 years ago. The Force team named to play is one of their strongest, and the Kings will have to take special care of flyer Alfi Mafi.
Kings: 15 SP Marais, 14 Sergeal Petersen, 13 Ronnie Cooke, 12 Andries Strauss, 11 Marcello Sampson, 10 Demetri Catrakilis, 9 Shaun Venter, 8. Luke Watson (c), 7. Wimpie van der Walt, 6. Cornell du Preez, 5. Steven Sykes, 4 David Bulbring, 3 Kevin Buys, 2 Bandise Maku, 1 Schalk Ferreira
Replacements : 16 Edgar Marutlulle, 17 Jaco Engels, 18 Daniel Adongo, 19 Jacques Engelbrecht, 20 Johan Herbst, 21 George Whitehead, 22 Hadleigh Parkes
Western Force 1. Pek Cowan,2. Nathan Charles,3. Tetera Faulkner,4. Sam Wykes,5. Hugh McMeniman,6. Angus Cottrell,7. Matt Hodgson (c),8. Ben McCalman,9. Alby Mathewson,10. Sam Christie,11. Alfie Mafi,12. Kyle Godwin,13. Winston Stanley ,14. Nick Cummins,15. Will Tupou
Replacements :16. Heath Tessmann,17. Kieran Longbottom,18. Toby Lynn,19. Richard Brown,20. Chris Alcock,21. Mick Snowden,22. Junior Rasolea
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Walk in the park for the cheeky Kings… 😈
Hopefully all the King’s men won’t have to deal with a Humpty Dumpty scenario today.
Will they play like Kings or turn into court jesters? 🙄
Got Kings by 2 😕
Let’s see what these chumps can’t do.
@McLovin (Comment 3) : 😕
@McLovin (Comment 3) : Blerrie hell, welcome back, Bru!! Hoe gaan dit?
@Pokkel (Comment 7) : Dankie, so far so good.. 😎
@Pokkel (Comment 7) : Hey swaer!
Fresh Prince of PE leading the Kings today. 🙄 🙂
@McLovin (Comment 8) : @klempie (Comment 9) : Lekker, lekker. Just hate it when the Sharks make life difficult for themselves.
@Pokkel (Comment 11) : Plum playing same game as 12 months ago.
Why do teams have a wind direction in their names? Makes no sense. 😐
@klempie (Comment 12) : don’t go there, let’s hope not.
@McLovin (Comment 13) : It’s to differentiate themselves from the Northern Kings…or the Eastern Force. 😕
Could potentially be the Eastern Force v Western Force. Although the Western Force need to travel West to reach the Southern Kings.
Here come the Pretenders.
Oh I would walk a thousand miles…
Nice to see everybody wearing Kings replica jerseys. 😆
OMG….Kings wearing Sharks CC jerseys for socks. They really are shameless! 🙄
Is George related to Tim?
I so wanted to watch this game, but have work to do
Kings in the lead!
Kings 5 – 0 Wors
I dont believe my eyes
Eng 6 – 10 Fra
HAHA. The worst Aussie team mauling the crap out of them.
Looks like Kings have run out of puff already. 😐
Have a lovely evening Gents & Ladies & Bulls fans. 🙂 I’m off.
But as Arnie once said: ‘I’ll be back’.
Go Kings!
@klempie (Comment 20) : no
Kings 19 – 10 Force
70mins
Kings 22 – 10 Force
70mins
3mins
1min
The Wors the first team to make their name tottie in PE. 😆
Hopefully not the last. 😈
Absolutely fantastic result! 😆 😆 😆
Welcome to Super Rugby Kings and congrats on your Win 😈
Triples all round in PE tonight.
FULLTIME
KINGS 22 – 10 FORCE
Not even a bonus point for the Wors. 😆
Swak Piketberg! 😆
😆 😆 😆
Long live The Kings!
And the Kings ends the weekend above the Sharks on the log 😳
Kings 3rd on the combined log.
Well I’m not too sure whether this shows how utter garbage the Force is, or that the Kings can actually be taken seriously.
Still, pretty impressive for a team to win their first game of SR.
Congrats Kings, didn’t expect you to even come close to winning this one.
(Lions supporters must be spitting mad 😈 )
Well done Kings!
@FireTheLooser (Comment 43) : Bit of both imo. Force are [email protected] Kings not entirely as [email protected] as first thought. 🙂
Long season still ahead. 😐
@FireTheLooser (Comment 43) : I did
See comment 4.
8 from the 1st 9 games correct 😎 Sadly I cant buy a margin point.
Kings have a bye next week?
8 points after two weeks. 😯 😆
@McLovin (Comment 45) : @SteelShark (Comment 46) : They somehow managed to throw a bunch of guys together who ended up gelling very early on in the season.
The remaining 300 Force supporters will now also revert back to watching only Ozzie rules football. 😈
Oz rugby is a shambles 😯
@FireTheLooser (Comment 49) : Exactly! They apparently didnt even have a regognized kicker for the last 20mins plus 🙄
@McLovin (Comment 48) : So bottom of the log will be between the tjietas and the streamers 😈
Oh well, as the saying goes – Lekker was nog nooit sleg nie.
I’m just holding thumbs for a lions/stormers relegation game!
@FireTheLooser (Comment 51) : Don’t even joke about it. 👿
I’ll be man enough to admit it, congratulations to the Kings
@Mutley (Comment 55) : Agree!
Was the only person out of the 3 pools that I’m in who gave the Kings my vote.
I think the Kings will be a hard to beat at home ,but most teams that hope to be in semi-final contention will aim to get a bonus point victory against them.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Sykes play that hard, baaastard. 😥 One thing is very clear -THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF LOOSEFORWARDS AND LOCKS IN THIS COUNTRY 😈
thanks for the well wishes from some before the match. victory is sweet
@Megatron (Comment 58) : too sweet, good stuff from the guys, they were awesome
Well done Kings!
Nice win kings … Good to see steven sykes playing his best game in a long while. Maku and Strauss also looked rejuvinated. Luke watson looked average and the kings actually got better when he left the field. Kudos to the coaching staff set pieces were an area where they excelled.
Next sharks, chiefs crusaders – baptism by fire – welcome to super rugby
@byron (Comment 61) : oh come on Luke was good before he went off, was leading from the front, he is the man to lead, admittedly Vleis did very well after he came on
this game i enjoyed great surprise for me, i even gave up the eng vs france game to watch this after halftime
Congratulations to the Kings! Pleasantly surprised.
The usual suspects played well; Strauss, Cooke, Sykes, Maku. Sergeal did really well, star in the making. Jacques Engelbrecht proved me right, he should be starting! What a performance.
@StevieS (Comment 65) : Yes myself. I am really happy actually, as I got myself ready for a terrible year, If they can hopefully keep this up, it will do SA rugby proud.