Lions coach Johan Ackermann has named his side to face the Blue Bulls at Loftus this weekend, opting to include returning Bok squad member Franco van der Merwe in his starting team.
Van der Merwe comes into the number 5 shirt, with Hugo Kloppers the man to drop out. Another change in the pack sees Willie Wepener come in for Martin Bezuidenhout; interestingly, both Kloppers and Bezuidenhout find themselves dropped entirely from the 22 this week.
In another somewhat surprising move, flyhalf Elton Jantjies has also been dropped, after being one of the few Lions backs to really play well against the Sharks. Marnitz Boshoff is back at flyhalf with the defensively-suspect Chrysander Botha picked at fullback.
Lions: 15 Chrysander Botha, 14 Deon Helberg, 13 Robert De Bruin, 12 Dylan Des Fountain, 11 Anthony Volmink, 10 Marnitz Boshoff, 9 Guy Cronje, 8 Willie Britz, 7 Derick Minnie (captain), 6 Jaco Kriel, 5 Franco van der Merwe, 4 Chris van Zyl, 3 Ruan Dreyer, 2 Willie Wepener, 1 Jacques Van Rooyen.
Replacements: 16 Robbie Coetzee, 17 CJ van der Linde, 18 Lambert Groenewald, 19 Warwick Tecklenburg, 20 Tian Meyer, 21 Elton Jantjies, 22 Lionel Cronje.
Tweet
You can do it LIONS!!!!!!!!!!!
I don’t know but seems the Lions are making to many changes weekly…
@Uli (Comment 2) : Rotation move for Jantjies and Boshoff and we will be total idiots if we don’t use Franco…. Willie Wepener knows the Bulls team very well so we can do with his help and he is also a very good Hooker…. Hopefully all this pays off.
@Lassy_lion (Comment 3) : it’s stupid to rotate the player who’s playing well
@robdylan (Comment 4) : I think the plan here is to also test Chrysander. He will surely get alot of high balls and alot of pressure. If he fails we can move Boshoff back to fullback and bring Jantjies off the bench… But I agree Jantjies looks like he is slowly getting his form back so give him gametime….. We will never really be a force to recon with if we keep on changing the team.
Go Lions!!!!!!!!
@Lassy_lion (Comment 5) : Botha is useless, though. I cannot belief they need more evidence of the fact that he can’t tackle…
@robdylan (Comment 7) : Sometimes showing faith in your players sort out the problems for you…. Hope this works 😉
bulls by 8 😛
Jaco Kriel is very impressive player, I pip him as a future Bok
Agree about Chrysander Botha. Putting him at fullback with the Bulls and their kicking game is effectively putting 14 men on the field.