No major injuries for WP

Cape Town - Western Province have no new injury concerns ahead of this weekend's Currie Cup final against the Golden Lions.

Province beat the Blue Bulls 23-18 in the tournament semi-finals on Friday night and word coming out of the defending champions on Monday was that they have come through that match unscathed.

The only concern, according to the Western Province website, was a knock to the knee to outside centre Johnny Kotze, but WP were confident on Monday that the player would recover for the final.

The full Western Province injury report:

– Outside centre Johnny Kotze (knock to the knee) is a minor doubt but he should be fine for the final.
– Captain Juan de Jongh has a slightly sore intercostal muscle but will be fine for Saturday after also sitting out training today (Monday).
– Hooker Scarra Ntubeni and flanker Chris Cloete (both calf muscles) both remain sidelined.

HEAD COACH JOHN DOBSON:

On maintaining their desire for the final after their epic semifinal win:

"The return of Juan de Jongh is not to be under-estimated, he brings a lot of energy and belief to this group. At the start of our campaign he came up with the slogan of ‘back to back’ – back-to-back Currie Cups, back-to-back scores, back-to-back performances… so I am not worried. In fact, I would go as far as describing this group of players as desperate… there’s a great desire to go out there and win it."

On facing the Lions at home in the final – after WP’s previous game there (a 32-62 loss):

"Last time in Johannesburg was a horror show. We missed a huge amount of tackles, we dropped ball, our kicking game misfired, our restarts cost us 21 points… It was the perfect storm and I honestly cannot see that happening again. I certainly do think we can do it."

CAPTAIN JUAN DE JONGH (on playing and winning a final):

"Play-off games are never easy. We knew it would be tough at Loftus, but for us it was important to improve on last year and the only way we can improve (from last year) is to lift the cup again.

"We know what it takes, but we need to fix what happened last time against the Lions. The nice thing is that as soon as the final whistle went last week we had our five minutes of joy and our intention immediately turned to the final afterwards. That’s what it’s all about for us this weekend – winning the game."