Vodacom Bulls Director of Rugby Jake White rotated several positions in his squad as the team said farewell to some of their Springboks ahead of their second Vodacom United Rugby Championship tour match against Welsh side Scarlets on Friday night.
With Willie le Roux, Ruan Nortje and Gerhard Steenekamp all returning home for part of their enforced rest period in conjunction with SA Rugby, White also doesn’t have the services of Elrigh Louw, who has been ruled out with an HIA.
And even though David Kriel’s red card was overturned by a URC Disciplinary Committee on Wednesday, White decided not to include him in the match day 23 as the team’s plans had already been set up by then.
Instead he named a very different looking side, one that will be captained by Akker van der Merwe, and one which will see Springbok Jan-Hendrik Wessels get his first start at loosehead for the team since being elevated to the position by Rassie Erasmus.
‼️TEAM ANNOUNCEMENT‼️
— Official Blue Bulls (@BlueBullsRugby) October 17, 2024
YOUR team to face Scarlets tomorrow for the second game on tour 🏆🔥@Vodacom #URC | @URCOfficial_RSA #ForeverBlue pic.twitter.com/wu8ZrK83g5
Previously Wessels was seen more as a hooker by the Bulls, but Erasmus’s hope that he can become a “swinger” - a player that can play hooker and prop - and gave him a start against Australia in Perth at loosehead, has seen Wessels become more of a possibility at loosehead for the Pretoria side.
Starting alongside Van der Merwe and Wilco Louw is probably as good as it gets in the URC for any loosehead, while Nortje’s absence means that Ruan Vermaak keeps his place at four with Cobus Wiese, who was on the bench last weekend, coming in for Nortje.
At six Nama Xaba is in for Marcell Coetzee, who drops out of the match day 23, while Cameron Hanekom returns after being on the bench last week for Louw.
Zak Burger swaps with Embrose Papier at halfback while Harold Vorster makes a welcome return from injury to take Kriel’s place and Henry Immelman replaces Le Roux at fullback.
TIME OFF FOR BOKS
White said while there were many changes, there was a still a load of experience in the squad.
“It looks like it will rain tomorrow in the game and we still have a lot of experience. In the midfield Canan (Moodie) can help us control the game a lot more,” White explained.
“We decided to rotate a lot more to keep guys fresh - there are a lot of guys who have come in who are fresh and have not played that much rugby of late, so that energy should be seen in the game.”
White said they had decided to give some of the Bok players time off as per the agreement with the national governing body.
“Part of the protocols agreed with SA Rugby is to give the Boks time off - a guy like Willie is one of them and I assume he will go on the end of year tour, and they’re likely to get together in two weeks time and after a long season and a long Rugby Championship, some of the players were due some time off. This was all part of our planning before the tour.”
The Bulls are one of only three unbeaten sides in the Championship thus far after four rounds.
VODACOM BULLS: Henry Immelman; Sebastian de Klerk, Canan Moodie, Harold Vorster, Kurt-Lee Arendse; Boeta Chamberlain, Zak Burger; Cameron Hanekom, Reinhardt Ludwig, Nama Xaba, Cobus Wiese, Ruan Vermaak, Wilco Louw, Akker van der Merwe (captain), Jan-Hendrik Wessels.
REPLACEMENTS: Johan Grobbelaar, Dylan Smith, Francois Klopper, JF van Heerden, Celimpilo Gumede, Embrose Papier, Chris Barend Smit, Stedman Gans.