Super Rugby is finally upon us, with Round 1 of the 2014 season starting this weekend. Only 2 games are played in Round 1, and only 4 South African sides are involved in Round 1.
The DHL Stormers have a bye weekend, right at the outset, but of course Bye Points fall away in 2014.
The New Zealand and Australian sides will only join up as from Round 2, as the South African sides will only be hauled in in June when the New Zealand and Australians play a Round where the South African sides sit out.
The Combined Log will therefore be skewed for the majority of the competition and one has to question why individual countries are allowed to start such a long competition ahead of it’s rivals. In 2013 the Australian sides started a week early, but at least they had the excuse that they needed an extra week in the middle of the year to prepare for the British & Irish Lions series, which they lost.
Weekend Teams – Round 1
Toyota Cheetahs
|
Lions
|
15 February at 17:05 |
|
- Team: 15 Willie le Roux, 14 Cornal Hendricks, 13 Johann Sadie, 12 Francois Venter, 11 Raymond Rhule, 10 Johan Goosen, 9 Shaun Venter, 8 Philip van der Walt, 7 Lappies Labuschagné, 6 Boom Prinsloo, 5 Francois Uys, 4 Lood de Jager, 3 Coenie Ooshuizen, 2 Adriaan Strauss (Captain), 1 Caylib Oosthuizen
- Replacements: 16 Ryno Barnes, 17 Trevor Nyakane, 18 Maks van Dyk, 19 Ligtoring Landman, 20 Jean Cook, 21 Sarel Pretorius, 22 Elgar Watts, 23 Rayno Benjamin.
|
- Team: 15 Chrysander Botha, 14 Deon van Rensburg, 13 Lionel Mapoe, 12 Stefan Watermeyer, 11 Ruan Combrinck, 10 Marnitz Boshoff, 9 Michael Bondesio, 8 Warren Whiteley, 7 Derick Minnie, 6 Jaco Kriel, 5 Franco van der Merwe, 4 Franco Mostert, 3 Julian Redelinghuys, 2 Robbie Coetzee, 1 Schalk van der Merwe
- Replacements: 16 Willie Wepener, 17 Jacques van Rooyen, 18 Ruan Dreyer, 19 Willie Britz, 20 Warwick Tecklenburg, 21 Faf de Klerk, 22 Coenie van Wyk, 23 Alwyn Hollenbach.
|
Cell C Sharks
|
Vodacom Bulls
|
15 February at 19:10 |
|
- Team: 15 SP Marais, 14 Odwa Ndungane, 13 Paul Jordaan, 12 Frans Steyn, 11 Lwazi Mvovo, 10 Patrick Lambie, 9 Cobus Reinach, 8 Ryan Kankowski, 7 Willem Alberts, 6 Marcell Coetzee, 5 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 4 Anton Bresler, 3 Jannie du Plessis, 2 Bismarck du Plessis (Captain), 1 Tendai Mtawarira
- Replacements: 16 Kyle Cooper, 17 Dale Chadwick, 18 Lourens Adriaanse, 19 Stephan Lewies, 20 Jean Deysel, 21 Charl McLeod, 22 Heimar Williams, 23 S’bura Sithole.
|
- Team: 15 Jurgen Visser, 14 Akona Ndungane, 13 JJ Engelbrecht, 12 Jan Serfontein, 11 Bjorn Basson, 10 Louis Fouché, 9 Francois Hougaard, 8 Pierre Spies (Captain), 7 Jacques du Plessis, 6 Jono Ross, 5 Flip van der Merwe, 4 Paul Willemse, 3 Werner Kruger, 2 Callie Visagie, 1 Dean Greyling
- Replacements: 16 Bongi Mbonambi, 17 Frik Kirsten, 18 Marcel van der Merwe, 19 Victor Matfield, 20 Jacques Engelbrecht, 21 Piet van Zyl, 22 Handré Pollard, 23 Ulrich Beyers.
|
Is Stokkies Hannekom beseer? Moeilikste Game om te pick is die Lions, Cheetahs daai een kan altwee kante toe gaan. Kan nie werklik sien dat die Bulls iets gaan maak teen die Sharks nie maar ons gaan die Rugga’s geniet die naweek omtrent tyd…
Battled for a large part of the day with load speeds here on R-T and have had to remove some of our Plugin’s, like the Recent Comments plugin… will place it back online as soon as CPU usage stabalizes to acceptable levels.
Still in contact with the Web Hosts, to lift certain restrictions on the site… but load speeds are not too shabby at present (can be better though)!
The dramatic increase in traffic to Rugby-Talk in the last while has contributed to the higher CPU load, but we have to get the site tip-top before Super Rugby starts.
@ Scrumsaam:
Stokkies NOT INCLUDED in the Lions SR squad, and also Bees Roux.
Bees I am almost certain was left out because of his history. IE Interference by “higer powers” within the Union. (Pot, Kettle Black: Make a sentence?) As for Stokkies, the speculation is that the Lions didn’t want 3 “injury prone” centres in the SR group. (Stokkies, Hollenbach and Mapoe)
In other words, the Lions CHOSE not to pick their strongest possible group and it may well bite them on the backside.
The logic baffles me.
Users Online
Total 64 users including 0 member, 64 guests, 0 bot online
Most users ever online were 3735, on 31 August 2022 @ 6:23 pm