Bulls Super rugby head coach Pote Human has named a team with two changes for Friday’s match in Auckland at Eden Park against the Blues.
Human has named Ivan van Zyl at scrumhalf and flanker Marco van Staden in his starting team.
Van Zyl takes over from Andre Warner and Van Staden comes in at flank for Paul Schoeman, who moves to no.8 in place of Duane Vermeulen.
The Springbok no.8 returned to South Africa as part of the SA Rugby agreement with contracted Springboks and their franchises. Jason Jenkins will don the blue jersey for the 50th time.
According to Human, they need to start well against the home side, who have won 11 of their 12 home games against the Bulls. “We need to get a good start and sustain that throughout the match. They have some quality players, but the real test will be in the set-pieces.
The Blues have the best scrum success rate (97%) in the competition, so that will be a critical area for us.”
With Handré Pollard and Duane Vermeulen out, Burger Odendaal will take over the captaincy. The midfielder said they have clear objectives in this match.
“We are the underdogs, no doubt about that. That is good for us, as we can only concentrate on our own game and that we want to achieve. This will have to be very clinical performance from us. If not, it will be a long evening.”
Bulls
15 Warrick Gelant, 14 Cornal Hendricks, 13 Johnny Kotze, 12 Burger Odendaal (captain), 11 Rosko Spekman, 10 Manie Libbok, 9 Ivan van Zyl, 8 Paul Schoeman, 7 Hanro Liebenberg, 6 Marco van Staden, 5 RG Snyman, 4 Jason Jenkins, 3 Trevor Nyakane, 2 Schalk Brits, 1 Lizo Gqoboka
Replacements : 16 Jaco Visagie, 17 Simphiwe Matanzima, 18 Wiehahn Herbst, 19 Jannes Kirsten, 20 Ruan Steenkamp, 21 Andre Warner, 22 JT Jackson, 23 Divan Rossouw
