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Cape Town - Bulls coach Nollis Marais is confident that the young players in his squad will hold their own in their Super Rugby opener against the Stormers at Newlands on Saturday.
While there are nine Springboks in the Bulls’ 23-man squad, the team has a youthful look about it and features four Super Rugby debutants.
Warrick Gelant (fullback), Nic de Jager (flank), Jannes Kirsten (flank) and RG Snyman (lock) will make debuts at this level, with Lizo Gqoboka (prop) and Jason Jenkins (lock) the rookies on the bench.
The likes of Francois Brummer, Tian Schoeman, Roelof Smit, Jaco Visagie and Hencus van Wyk also have only a handful number of games at Super Rugby level, but the coach is not worried.
“The young players in this team are afraid of nothing. They are in the team because they are good enough to play at this level,” Marais told Netwerk24.
Saturday’s clash at Newlands is scheduled for 17:15.
Teams:
Stormers
TBA
Bulls
15 Warrick Gelant , 14 Travis Ismaiel, 13 Jesse Kriel, 12 Jan Serfontein, 11 Bjorn Basson, 10 Francois Brummer, 9 Rudy Paige, 8 Arno Botha, 7 Jannes Kirsten, 6 Nic de Jager, 5 Grant Hattingh, 4 RG Snyman, 3 Marcel van der Merwe, 2 Adriaan Strauss (captain), Trevor Nyakane
Substitutes: 16 Jaco Visagie, 17 Lizo Gqoboka, 18 Hencus van Wyk, 19 Jason Jenkins, 20 Roelof Smit, 21 Piet van Zyl, 22 Tian Schoeman, 23 Burger Odendaal
