Durban - It is swings and roundabouts for the Lions team selected to travel to the Stormers for the New Year’s Eve United Rugby Championship derby with good news in the form of talented centre Henco van Wyk returning to the midfield but the bad news is that captain Reinhard Nothnagel is out injured.
Van Wyk’s centre partner, Marius Louw, will lead the side against the current champions in the round 11 fixture at the DHL Stadium.
Young flanker Jarod Cairns cracks the starting XV in what has been a steady rise for the former Paul Roos Gymnasium pupil through the Lions’ junior ranks. He combines with Ruan Venter who shifts to No 7, with Emmanuel Tshituka moving to the back of the scrum.
Elsewhere, Morne van den Berg, Manuel Rass and Morgan Naude return to the squad as impact players.
Your final Emirates Lions team for 2022 to take on the DHL Stormers on New Year's Eve at the DHL Stadium to wrap up the Summer Sundowners series in the Cape.#LionsPride🦁#STOvLIO | @vodacom | #URC | #UnitedWeRise pic.twitter.com/VAR6o4LoZT
— Lions (@LionsRugbyCo) December 30, 2022
The Lions shocked the Stormers this time last year in Cape Town but Lions defence guru Jaque Fourie says it will take a massive effort by his team to repeat that result.
“It’s a roughly a year ago since we beat them but they are a different side now not to mention title holders, said Fourie. “In addition, they’ve picked up good momentum during the season and it’s now for us to put last Friday’s result against the Sharks behind us by channeling a positive approach towards a win on Saturday.”
The straight-talking Fourie believes his team’s defensive standards would need a huge step up from last week’s disappointing result, something they’ve been focusing on in downtown Johannesburg this week.
“We are going to have to stay connected in our defence lines as well as looking at closing their space and time,” he cautioned.
“They are a team who are dangerous on the counter-attack and we saw last week how quickly they scored so it’s key for us to maintain our shape,” he concluded.
Emirates Lions Starting XV: 15 Quan Horn, 14 Rabz Maxwane, 13 Henco van Wyk, 12 Marius Louw (capt), 11 Edwill van der Merwe, 10 Jordan Hendrikse, 9 Sanele Nohamba; 8 Emmanuel Tshituka, 7 Ruan Venter, 6 Jarod Cairns, 5 Pieter Jansen van Vuren, 4 Willem Alberts, 3 Asenathi Ntlabakanye, 2 PJ Botha, 1 JP Smith
Replacements: 16 Jaco Visagie, 17 Morgan Naude, 18 Ruan Smith, 19 Ruben Schoeman, 20Sibusiso Sangweni, 21 Morne van den Berg, 22 Gianni Lombard, 23 Manual Rass.
@MikeGreenaway67