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Pretoria - Blue Bulls coach Nollis Marais named five Springboks and another on the bench in the team to play the EP Kings in a friendly match in Port Elizabeth on Friday (19:00 kick-off).
Francois Hougaard is picked at scrumhalf, Arno Botha at No 8, Deon Stegmann at flank, Flip van der Merwe at lock and Werner Kruger at prop, with Dean Greyling among the substitutes.
Marais' stated policy of giving younger players a chance is evident in the number of recent Junior Springboks that makes up the rest of the group.
Warrick Gelant, Travis Ismaiel, William Small-Smith and Daniel Kriel are included among the backs and Jannes Kirsten and Marvin Orie amongst the starting pack.
Marais made it clear that the team will have little time to get things right.
"We only have one more warm-up match after this, so we need to get things right from the start. We are working on a number of things on the training ground and would love to see that implemented in a match situation, so it will be an important match for us.”
Teams:
EP Kings:
15 Scott van Breda, 14 Siviwe Soyizwapi, 13 Ronnie Cooke, 12 Tim Whitehead (captain),11 Luther Obi, 10 George Whitehead, 9 Kevin Luiters, 8 Tim Agaba, 7 Jacques Engelbrecht, 6 Thembelani Bholi, 5 Steven Sykes, 4 Stefan Willemse, 3 Basil Short, 2 Michael van Vuuren, 1 Schalk Ferreira
Substitutes: 16 Albe de Swardt, 17 Tom Botha, 18 Cameron Lindsay, 19 Luke Watson, 20 Enrico Acker, 21 Karlo Aspeling, 22 Tythan Adams, 23 Lizo Gqoboka, 24 Tazz Fuzani, 25 JP du Plessis, 26 Marlou van Niekerk
Blue Bulls:
15 Warrick Gelant, 14 Travis Ismaiel, 13 William Small-Smith, 12 Daniel Kriel, 11 Jamba Ulengo, 10 Tian Schoeman, 9 Francois Hougaard, 8 Arno Botha, 7 Jannes Kirsten, 6 Deon Stegmann, 5 Marvin Orie, 4 Flip van der Merwe (captain), 3 Werner Kruger, 2 Jaco Visagie, 1 Morné Mellett.
Substitutes: 16 Corniel Els, 17 Dean Greyling, 18 Nqoba Mxoli, 19 RG Snyman, 20 Clyde Davids, 21 Roelof Smit, 22 Ivan van Zyl, 23 Marais Schmidt, 24 Dries Swanepoel, 25 Jade Stighling, 26 Kefentse Mahlo
