Blue Bulls coach Frans Ludeke has named an unchanged side, from the one who lost to WP, to face the Table-topping Sharks on the weekend in their Currie Cup clash at Loftus.

The Blue Bulls were assisted by Balie Swart today, to rectify some of their scrumming woes, following a very disjointed scrumming performance against Western Province last weekend.

Blue Bulls Captain and hooker, Derick Kuun, was confident that the Bulls scrumming will improve and has vowed that they will work hard at improving this facet of play.

The Bulls come up against a Sharks Team who are without their Bokke front row and who has’nt exactly set the world on fire in the scrums during this Currie Cup season yet.

This match is going to be very interesting and it is very difficult to predict a favourite or a winner for this match.

The Blue Bulls need to win this match to strenghten their bid for a semi-position and a possible home simi-final. Apart from the Sharks, the Bulls will still face the strong-scrumming Cheetahs, so there is no let-up for the Bulls in sight.

The Team is:

15 Zane Kirchner

14 Gerhard van den Heever

13 Jaco Pretorius

12 Stefan Watermeyer

11 Francois Hougaard

10 Burton Francis

9 Heini Adams

8 Dewald Potgieter

7 Pedrie Wannenburg

6 Deon Stegmann

5 Wilhelm Steenkamp

4 Flip van der Merwe

3 Werner Kruger

2 Derick Kuün (captain)

1 Jaco Engels.
 

Replacements: 16 Bandise Maku, 17 Rossouw de Klerk, 18 Fudge Mabeta, 19 Jacques Burger, 20 Dean Greyling, 21 Francois Brummer, 22 Tiger Mangweni.

Date: Saturday, September 12
Venue: Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria
Kick-off: 17.05 (15.05 GMT)
Referee: Jonathan Kaplan
Assistant referees: Gareth Lloyd-Jones, Christie du Preez
TMO: Shaun Veldsman

Personally, I would have chosen Dean Greyling ahead of Jaco Engels on loosehead.

The Blue Bulls front 5 also needed to have a complete attitude and mindset change for this coming weekend… only time wil tell whether they can achieve this.

As we all know, a week is a very long time in rugby. We saw how the Wallabies turned their mindset and focus around in a week. For the sake of rugby in SA, and us proud Bulls supporters, we hope the Bulls have taken a leaf out of that book too.