Pote picks the strongest available team for Bulls’ last warm-up match against Sharks
Pote Human's squad for Saturday's warm-up match against the Sharks in Ballito is probably closest to his best-available team and it can be assumed that the Bulls team for the SuperRugby opening match against the Stormers on February 16 will not differ much from this one.
Jason Jenkins will start at lock with Lood de Jager on Saturday when the Bulls take on the Sharks in Ballito.
Jenkins recently returned from his club duties in Japan and will start alongside fellow Springbok and team captain, De Jager, in the engine room.
The match will also see a first sight in the new season of Hanro Liebenberg and Andre Warner, with both returning from their loan spell in France.
Liebenberg and Warner will play off the bench in a team that showed numerous changes from the one that played in Cape Town last weekend.
Only Warrick Gelant, Jesse Kriel, Handre Pollard, Duane Vermeulen, De Jager and the front row of Trevor Nyakane, Schalk Britz and Lizo Gqoboka will be in the starting team again. Dylan Sage, Embrose Papier, Thembelani Bholi, and Ruan Steenkamp played off the bench last weekend, but earn starts this time around against the home side.
Wingers Cornal Hendricks and Rosko Specman played in the warm-up match against the Lions two weeks, but was not involved in Cape Town.
The match takes place at Ashton College in Ballito on Saturday. Kickoff is at 14h00.
Bulls coach, Pote Human, said the match, which is expected to see the home side laden with all their international players, is another important step towards their final preparations for the Super Rugby competition.
“We did some good things last weekend and this is another step towards fine-tuning the squad. Obviously we will be trying to have a better start this week. The bad start last weekend, where we conceded some soft tries early, forced us to play catch-up rugby. We responded well, but I would not like to see a repeat of that,” Human said.
Starting team: Warrick Gelant, Cornal Hendricks, Jesse Kriel, Dylan Sage, Rosko Specman, Handre Pollard, Embrose Papier, Duane Vermeulen, Thembelani Bholi, Ruan Steenkamp, Lood de Jager (c), Jason Jenkins, Trevor Nyakane, Schalk Britz, Lizo Gqoboka. Finishers: Johan Grobbelaar, Matthys Basson, Conraad van Vuuren, Hanro Liebenberg, Paul Schoeman, Jannes Kirsten, Tim Agaba, Andre Warner, JT Jackson, Jade Stighling, Divan Rossouw.
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