Bulls axe three Boks
Marais axed three Springboks ahead of the trip to Cape Town, for a Currie Cup Round Seven encounter with Western Province.
The most noteworthy change is in the front row – a weakness of the Bulls – with Pierre Schoeman named at loosehead prop in place of Bok Dean Greyling, who has dropped out of the match-day squad.
The other changes see Burger Odendaal swapping places with Bok Jan Serfontein in the midfield and Deon Stegmann replacing fellow Bok Arno Botha, who moves to the bench.
Stegmann is included at flank, with Pieter Labuschagne moving to No.8, where Botha started last weekend.
He named Louis Fouché at flyhalf in place of Tian Schoeman, who drops to the bench.
"We needed to make some small adjustments as we will approach the WP match differently from the one against the Lions last weekend," Marais said.
"I have brought in Louis [Fouché], Burger [Odenfaal] and Deon [Stegmann] for a particular reason.
"I think Pierre [Schoeman] will front up come scrum time.
"We need to be competitive in the scrums if we want to get a result against WP, so I made a change," the coach added.
Blue Bulls: 15 Warrick Gelant, 14 Travis Ismaiel, 13 Dries Swanepoel, 12 Burger Odendaal, 11 Jamba Ulengo, 10 Louis Fouché, 9 Francois Hougaard, 8 Pieter Labuschagne (captain), 7 Roelof Smit, 6 Deon Stegmann, 5 Marvin Orie, 4 Jacques du Plessis, 3 Marcel van der Merwe, 2 Bandise Maku, 1 Pierre Schoeman.
Replacements: 16 Jaco Visagie, 17 Werner Kruger, 18 Rudolph Snyman, 19 Arno Botha, 20 Ivan van Zyl, 21 Tian Schoeman, 22 Jan Serfontein.
Date: Friday, September 18
Venue: Newlands, Cape Town
Kick-off: 19.00 (17.00 GMT)
Referee: Rasta Rasivhenge
Assistant referees: Quinton Immelman, Lourens van der Merwe
TMO: Marius Jonker
