Pumas' best to line up against WP
The Pumas will have a number of their Super Rugby stars available when they head to the Western Cape to tackle Western Province in a Currie Cup pre-season friendly on Saturday.
Pumas coach MJ Mentz revealed that only one of his frontline players, loose forward Renaldo Bothma, will not feature in this year's Currie Cup season.
Botha is currently with Namibia, where they are preparing to take on Russia in the second match of their two_test pre-World Cup series. He will stay with Namibia till after the World Cup.
Two other players loaned out for Super Rugby, prop Corné Fourie (Lions) and lock Lubabalo Mtyanda (Sharks), have already have already returned and will feature at the Drakenstein Correctional Centre against WP on Saturday.
Two other players who were ion loan during the Super Rugby season, Vincent Koch (Stormers) and Francois de Klerk (Lions) are currently with the Bok team and may return to Nelspruit if they are not named in South Africa's World Cup at the end of August.
"We have a good collection of youth and experience in the squad," Mentz said.
"The fact that we won the Vodacom Cup competition with this group, sans the Super Rugby loan players, make us very excited about the Currie Cup campaign.
"Yes, it is a more formidable competition and we are also aware that our second year in the Premier Division will bring tougher challenges."
Apart from two warm-up matches – on Saturday, July 18 against WP in Franschhoek and four days later against the Boland Cavaliers in Wellington – they will also have a training camp in Cape Town.
Pumas squad:
Forwards: De-Jay Terblanché, Khwezi Mona, Vincent Koch, Frank Herne, Jacques Momberg, François du Toit, Corné Fourie, Sabelo Nhlapo, Simon Westraadt, Marius Coetzer, Lubabalo Mtyanda, Rudi Mathee, Jannie Stander, Marco Kruger, Brian Shabangu, Marnus Schoeman, Jaco Bouwer, Uzair Cassiem, JJ Breet, Jason Fraser, Lambert Groenewald.
Backs: Sinovuyo Nyoka, Reynier van Rooyen, Johan Herbst, Francois de Klerk, Justin van Staden, JC Roos, Stefan Watermeyer, Hennie Skorbinski, Dewald Pretorius, Wilmaure Louw, Jerome Pretorius, Heinrich Steyl, Rosko Specman, Marcello Sampson, Bernado Botha, Ruwellyn Isbell, JW Bell, Hoffman Maritz.
