The Eastern Province Kings team that will take on the Xerox Golden Lions at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium this weekend has been announced.
Head Coach Carlos Spencer said they had not yet finalised who the captain would be, what with Luke Watson being out with a concussion, but said Aidon Davis would take up Watson’s spot at 8th man on Saturday.
Spencer said BG Uys came in for Lizo Gqoboka, who was being rested following a long three games.
Rugby15
“[Lizo’s] gone through quite a high workload in terms of pre season and the last few weeks and BG has been working hard and deserves this opportunity,” he said.
Spencer also announced that Gary van Aswegen would sit the game out as he had been battling with a groin injury for the last two or three weeks and it was important to manage him and allow him to recover.
Tim Whitehead, who had sustained a knock to the knee on Saturday, had made a huge improvement over the past few days and Spencer said they would make a call on his availability tomorrow morning [SUBS: Wednesday 27 August 2014]
“If he doesn’t come through Ronnie Cooke will move to Centre, with Siyanda Grey moving to wing, from the bench,” he said.
Spencer said he felt the players had come a long way since their game against the Lions at Ellis Park.
I definitely believe [we can turn it around] I thought we made huge strides on the weekend [against the Bulls] and thought we made a huge step up,” he said.
“We do realise it is going to be a challenge but the guys are looking forward to it. It’s just a matter of carrying what we did last week into this week and improving another 5 or 10%,” he said.
EP Kings: 15 Scott van Breda, 14 Ronnie Cooke / Siyanda Grey, 13 Tim Whitehead / Ronnie Cooke, 12 Shane Gates, 11 Siviwe Soyizwapi, 10 George Whitehead, 9 Kevin Luitrs, 8 Aidon Davis, 7 Paul schoeman, 6 Thembelani Bholi, 5 Steven Sykes, 4 David Bullbring, 3 Tom Botha, 2 Edgar Marutlulle, 1 BG Uys
Replacements: 16 Mike van Vuuren, 17 Charles Marais, 18 Shaun McDonald, 19 Stefan Willemse, 20 Tobie Botes, 21 Siyanda Grey / Dwayne Jenner, 22 Ntabeni Dukisa.