The Southern Kings team announced for the Rebels game has remained relatively unchanged from the team that took on the Brumbies last weekend, with the only changes being Demetri Catrakilis and Shaun Venter, who return to the starting fifteen.
Director of Rugby, Alan Solomons said they had fundamentally decided to go with the same team following the game against the Brumbies.
“The structure of the 22 worked really well and the team put on a great performance againt the Brumbies last week,” he said.
Solomons said the only changes were Catrakilis and Venter, who came back on to start, with Siviwe “Shakes” Soyizwapi and Nicolas Vergallo, who moved back to the bench.
“Demetri returns to flyhalf, withGeorge moving back to fullback, while Shakes, who did really well for his debut, takes a spot on the bench,” he said.
Solomons said the team had built a good foundation in the game against the Brumbies and were looking to keep the momentum moving forward.
“The key for us is that we delivered a good performance against the Brumbies and we now want to build on that in the game against the Rebels,” he said.
Solomons said the team had had two good sessions earlier this week.
Captain Andries Strauss said the main thing for the team was keeping the momentum going and building on lessons learnt from their previous games.
“There were a few crucial areas that we still need to work on, such as being aware of the space on the field, limiting the opponent’s space and getting used to the levels of pressure on the field, but these are things we can only learn on the field, through experience,” he said.
Strauss said they also needed to be aware of the number of penalties the team were giving away, and needed to work on reducing that.
“We gave away 18 penalties against the Brumbies, of which many were at the breakdown and at crucial times in the game, and we need to look at reducing those,” he said.
Strauss said despite this though he felt the team as a whole were getting better and were finding their stride.
Strauss said the overall mood in the camp was positive, with the draw against Brumbies being a great boost to morale.
“For many of the players this has been their first tour, and they have gained a lot of new experiences through the tour, both on and off the field,” he said.
Strauss said they were looking forward to the game on Saturday, but did not see it as an easy game.
“The Rebels have come back very strong against the Western Force last week. Many people have written them off after they took a hiding in the game against the Sharks, but they are not to be underestimated,” he said.
Southern Kings Team to Play Rebels at Aami Stadium, Melbourne on Saturday 13 April 2013:
- Starting Line-up: 15. George Whitehead, 11. Ronnie Cooke, 13. Waylon Murray, 12. Andries Strauss(Captain), 14. Sergeal Petersen, 10. DemetriCatrakilis, 9. Shaun Venter, 1. Schalk Ferreira, 2. Hannes Franklin, 3. Grant Kemp, 6. Devin Oosthuizen, 4. Steven Sykes (Vice Captain), 5. Rynier Bernardo, 7. Wimpie van der Walt, 8. Cornell du Preez,
- Replacements: 16. BandiseMaku, 17. Kevin Buys, 18. David Bulbring, 19. Jacques Engelbrecht, 20. Nicolas Vergallo, 21. Marcello Sampson, 22. Siviwe Soyzwapi
