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Mitchell sticks to his plans for Cheetahs

The same squad that were edged by Western Province last weekend will travel to Free State, with only one change on the bench, where Matthys Basson is replacing Dayan van der Westhuizen as the back-up prop.

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This is the first time Mitchell was able to name the same starting team since taking over the reins and the coach was understandably happy with the continuity.

"We are starting to find our feet now and this will help yes," Mitchell said.

"I thought we were desperately unlucky not to get the result against a very strong WP side last weekend, but the challenge will be for us to regroup and make sure our confidence levels are up for the Bloemfontein clash," he said.

Blue Bulls: 15 Warrick Gelant, 14 Duncan Matthews, 13 Burger Odendaal (captain), 12 JT Jackson, 11 Johnny Kotze , 10 Marnitz Boshoff, 9 Ivan van Zyl, 8 Nic de Jager , 7 Tim Agaba, 6 Marco van Staden, 5 Ruben van Heerden, 4 Ashton Fortuin, 3 Conraad van Vuure, 2 Edgar Mautlulle, 1 Pierre Schoeman.

Replacements: 16 Johan Grobbelaar, 17 Matthys Basson, 18 Jano Venter, 19 Boom Prinsloo, 20 Piet van Zyl, 21 Tony Jantjies, 22 Ulrich Beyers.

Date: Friday, October 6

Venue: Free State Stadium, Bloemfontein

Kick-off: 18.00 (16.00 GMT)

Referee: Jaco van Heerden

Assistant referees: Ben Crouse, Darren Colby

TMO: Lourens van der Merwe

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