Venter leads Cheetahs in Munster duel

Cape Town - Cheetahs coach Rory Duncan has named his team to face Munster in their PRO14 encounter in Limerick on Saturday (kick-off 18:15 SA time).

Francois Venter is back from the Springbok camp and takes over the captaincy from Niell Jordaan.  

Venter will start in his usual position of outside centre, as William Small-Smith moves to inside centre and Ali Mgijima provides cover on the bench.

Rosco Specman failed a fitness test on Thursday and was ruled out due to injury, which sees Sergeal Petersen move from fullback to right wing.  

Clayton Blommetjies moves to the fullback position, with Robbie Petzer coming in at No 10.

Up front, Rynier Bernardo replaces Justin Basson at lock, with Armandt Koster providing cover on the bench.  

“The guys have had a good training week. We’ve spent a fair amount of time preparing ourselves especially in defence and breakdown,” said Duncan.  

“With the anticipation of relatively wet conditions, one or two areas of the game have been adapted to suit the weather circumstances.” 

Teams:

Munster

15 Andrew Conway, 14 Darren Sweetnam, 13 Chris Farrell, 12 Jaco Taute, 11 Alex Wootton, 10 Ian Keatley, 9 Duncan Williams, 8 Jack O’Donoghue, 7 Tommy O’Donnell, 6 Sean O’Connor, 5 Billy Holland (captain), 4 Jean Kleyn, 3 Stephen Archer, 2 Rhys Marshall, 1 Liam O’Connor

Substitutes: 16 Niall Scannell, 17 Dave Kilcoyne, 18 John Ryan, 19 Fineen Wycherley, 20 Robin Copeland, 21 James Hart, 22 Rory Scannell, 23 Simon Zebo

Cheetahs

15 Clayton Blommetjies, 14 Sergeal Petersen, 13 Francois Venter (captain), 12 William Small-Smith, 11 Makazole Mapimpi, 10 Robbie Petzer, 9 Shaun Venter, 8 Niell Jordaan, 7 Henco Venter, 6 Paul Schoeman, 5 Reniel Hugo, 4 Rynier Bernardo, 3 Johan Coetzee, 2 Jacques du Toit, 1 Charles Marais

16 Torsten van Jaarsvel, 17 Ox Nche, 18 Tom Botha, 19 Armandt Koster, 20 Gerhard Olivier, 21 Tian Meyer, 22 Ali Mgijima, 23 Rayno Benjamin