Vodacom Super Rugby
Bulls geared for derby - Spies
2012-05-30 19:00
Pretoria - Bulls captain Pierre Spies believes his players are geared up and ready for their north-south derby against the Stormers here on Saturday.
"It's a tough task playing against the Stormers, but we are glad that we are playing at home and we will be throwing all of our energy toward a good result this weekend," Spies said on Wednesday.
"We knew this derby was waiting for us. Stormers-Bulls games are always filled with hype, so this weekend is set up for another match like that."
The Bulls arrived back from their three-week tour of Australasia earlier in the week and now shift their attention to their last match of the Super Rugby series before the international break, when the Springboks take on England.
Bulls coach Frans Ludeke said they were happy to be home from a tough overseas leg but warned that the Stormers would offer another gruelling encounter as top spot in the SA conference was up for grabs on Saturday.
"If we follow our processes and execute well we will get a good result, but the Stormers are winning and they are a difficult outfit home or away," Ludeke said.
"They are top of the conference, they play winning rugby and that's what you want to do at the end of the day.
"For us, that is what we are after. We know we need to be accurate and we need to play for 80 minutes."
Spies echoed Ludeke's comments, adding that the Bulls would need to be more diligent in closing out matches.
"It's to keep your concentration for 80 minutes. Sometimes a game goes a certain way and you have to adapt to that," he said.
"It's about how you react to difficult situations. We are on course, but we need to concentrate for the full game."
Ludeke made two changes to the team that lost to the Chiefs in Hamilton last week, calling up Juandré Kruger as a replacement for Wilhelm Steenkamp, who drops to the bench, while JJ Engelbrecht is in for Johann Sadie, who drops out of the match 22 altogether.
"Johann Sadie is struggling with a hamstring injury," Ludeke said.
"But we are using a group rotation system so we had a good think about it and decided to leave him out this week."
Teams:
Bulls:
15 Zane Kirchner, 14 Akona
Ndungane, 13 JJ Engelbrecht, 12 Wynand Olivier, 11 Bjorn Basson, 10
Morné Steyn, 9 Francois Hougaard, 8 Pierre Spies (captain), 7 CJ
Stander, 6 Dewald Potgieter, 5 Juandre Kruger, 4 Flip van der Merwe, 3
Werner Kruger, 2 Chiliboy Ralepelle, 1 Dean Greyling
Substitutes:
16 Willie Wepener, 17 Rayno Gerber, 18 Wilhelm Steenkamp, 19 Arno
Botha, 20 Jano Vermaak, 21 Louis Fouché, 22 Francois Venter
Stormers:
15.
Gio Aplon, 14. Gerhard van den Heever, 13. Juan de Jongh, 12. Jean de
Villiers (captain), 11. Bryan Habana, 10. Peter Grant, 9. Dewaldt
Duvenage, 8. Jebb Sinclair, 7. Rynhardt Elstadt, 6. Siya Kolisi, 5. De
Kock Steenkamp, 4. Eben Etzebeth, 3. Frans Malherbe, 2. Tiaan
Liebenberg, 1. Deon Carstens
Substitutes: 16. Deon Fourie, 17
Brok Harris, 18. Quinn Roux, 19. Don Armand, 20. Nick Fenton-Wells, 21.
Louis Schreuder, 22. Burton Francis