DHL Western Province have stuck to their stated script of keeping the number of players who played in the Vodacom URC to a minimum in the squad that kicks off the Carling Currie Cup season against the Vodacom Bulls in Cape Town on Saturday.
The team for the Bulls game will be announced later in the week, but WP coach Labeeb Levy has included eight of the Junior Springboks who won the World Junior Rugby Championship title in Italy last weekend in the group. None of those players will face the Bulls, but the likes of the national Under-20 captain Riley Norton, will be available to play for WP in the remaining six league games.
The other Junior Boks who will be in the WP mix are Xola Nyali, Wandile Mlaba, Oliver Reid, Herman Lubbe, Siya Ndlozi, Dominic Malgas, and Gino Cupido. Other players have featured in the WP Under-21 teams in two consecutive national title-winning campaigns.
The wider 54-man WP squad also includes some experience in the form of former Springbok and Lions wing Courtnall Skosan, another Bok in Scarra Ntubeni, lock Gary Porter and prop Sti Sithole, all of whom played minimal rugby in the URC last season and could do with game time without it compromising the Stormers’ 2025/2026 URC and Investec Champions Cup campaigns.
The Stormers’ URC players are resting up at present ahead of the start of their pre-season, with the next URC season set to kick off on 26 September.
There are some players, though, who are currently not first choices for the Stormers but will be looking to use the Currie Cup to build confidence for the URC season in the form of the exciting young scrumhalf Imad Kha,n as well as Jurie Matthee, who has done well as a flyhalf for WP in previous Currie Cup campaigns.
With Manie Libbok set to continue his career in Japan and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Damian Willemse likely to be with the Boks for at least part of the Stormers’ season, Matthee is a player who could find himself wearing the Stormers No. 10 jersey quite a lot in the URC campaign.
There are also seven players with recent Springbok Sevens experience on the WP books for the Currie Cup - Tristan Leyds, Zain Davids, Sako Makata, Justin Geduld, Ronald Brown, and Shilton van Wyk.
To increase depth, Levy has also called in 13 club players who have impressed at that level, and the WP/Stormers' brains trust might want to see them tested at a higher level.
WP CURRIE CUP SQUAD
FORWARDS: Abri Coetzee (Hamiltons), Adam de Waal, Aden da Costa, Alex Groves, Andre Goedhals, Arno Gustufson (Hamiltons), Cabous Eloff, Carlo van Greunen (Durbanville-Bellville), CJ Velleman, Danio Botha, De Wet Marais (Maties), Enos Diao (UCT), Erhard Lambrecht (Helderberg), Francois Staples (Durbanville-Bellville), Gary Porter, Gideon van Wyk, Herman Lubbe, Keagan Blanckenberg, Luca Bakkes, Louw Nel, Luhanyo Vokozela, Matthew Beckett (UCT), Mhleli Khuzwayo (UCT), Nick Roebeck (Hamiltons), Oliver Reid, Patrick Kitete, Riley Norton, Roland van den Heever (SK Walmers), Scarra Ntubeni, Sti Sithole, Wandile Mlaba, Xola Nyali, Zachary Porthen, Zain Davids.
BACKS: Asad Moos, Brendan Venter (Helderberg), Courtnall Skosan, Damian Markus, Dominic Malgas, Ezekiel Ngobeni (Maties), Gino Cupido, Imad Khan, Jared Africa, Joel Leotlelelak, Jurie Matthee, Justin Geduld, Kyle Smith, Luke Burger, Quein Nortje, Ronald Brown, Sako Makata, Shilton van Wyk, Siya Ndlozi, Tristan Leyds.