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Pretoria - The Blue Bulls will look for an improved start to proceedings when they take on Western Province in a Currie Cup clash in Cape Town on Saturday.
Bulls skipper Gary Botha said at the team announcement on Wednesday that his side would like to make fewer mistakes than they made in the first half of Saturday's 33-30 win over the Cheetahs.
"It will always remain a bit of an emotional kind of game (against the Cheetahs)," Botha said.
"Nevertheless, it is another Currie Cup season and it's the next game we will focus on."
The Bulls trailed 17-6 at the break against the Cheetahs but showed great resilience to win the match by three points.
Blue Bulls coach Pine Pienaar said the narrow win gave his team some much needed confidence going into the traditionally tough north v south derby.
"We said at the beginning of last week that it was important that we had a good start at home, and the guys showed a lot of character coming back," Pienaar said.
"I think a win like that would help the side.
"I told the team on Monday that the game against Cheetahs was in the past and our next focus will be against Province which will obviously be a tough battle."
Pienaar said, despite Province losing a host of players to the Springboks and injuries, they still had enough quality players.
"They played well against the Leopards, which is not an easy game in Potch, and against Griquas they came back and showed some character," he said.
Pienaar continued to show consistency in his team selection, not making any changes to the starting XV since the start of the Currie Cup season two weeks ago.
He made two changes to the bench on Wednesday, with scrumhalf Lohan Jacobs returning to the team in the place of injured Ruan Snyman and flanker Warwick Tecklenburg replacing Okkie Kruger.
There was, however, some uncertainty over the fitness of flyhalf Francois Brummer who had picked up a rib cartilage injury.
Pienaar said a decision on whether Brummer would play would be made on Friday, but he was confident that the pivot would pull through.
If Brummer was deemed unfit for Saturday's clash, replacement flyhalf Marnitz Boshoff would take over at number 10, with Under-21 pivot Louis Fouche moving in on the bench.
Teams:
Blue Bulls: 15 Jurgen Visser, 14 Akona Ndungane, 13 Stephan Dippenaar, 12 Stefan Watermeyer, 11 Gerhard van den Heever, 10 Francois Brummer, 9 Dustin Jinka, 8 Gerrit-Jan van Velze, 7 Dewald Potgieter, 6 Derick Kuün, 5 Juandré Kruger, 4 Fudge Mabeta, 3 Rossouw de Klerk, 2 Gary Botha (captain), 1 Corné Fourie
Substitutes: 16 Willie Wepener, 17 Frik Kirsten, 18 Warwick Tecklenburg, 19 CJ Stander, 20 Lohan Jacobs, 21 Marnitz Boshoff, 22 Francois Venter
Western Province:
TBA
