V/d Merwe handed centre stage
Stephan van der Merwe, who has featured off the bench thus far this season, will make his first Varsity Cup start of 2010 – as a replacement for the injured Dabeon Draghoender – as the defending champion Maties get set to host FNB Shimlas in Stellenbosch on Monday night.
Draghoender picked up a knee injury during this past Monday’s 43-10 win over UJ, but, in his absence, Van der Merwe will be determined to take his chance in the No.12 shirt with both hands.
Fortunately for Van der Merwe, he will be able to rely upon the experience of Stokkies Hanekom – on his outside – and Conrad Hoffmann, at flyhalf; making his job that much easier against a hungry Shimlas team.
Shimlas, of course, went down 16-17 to Pukke on Monday – their first loss of the 2010 season – but they could find the going even tougher against the formidable back-to-back champions who are expecting a full-house of spectators at the Danie Craven Stadium.
“We have sold 12,000 season tickets, already, this season – so hopefully we can have a full-house of spectators,” Maties head coach Chean Roux told varsitycup.co.za.
Roux, when asked about the challenge of hosting Shimlas, added: “As usual, I haven’t seen a lot of them (this season) – the most I probably saw was their first 20 minutes against UCT on the opening day of the Varsity Cup.
“I heard about their game on Monday (against Pukke) and apparently they had a lot of possession… so they’ll be disappointed with the loss and, as always, are a formidable team.”
Meanwhile, in other changes to the Maties line-up that beat UJ, Marinus Pretorius comes in for Hugo Kloppers at lock and Johan Roets and Mike De Neuilly-Rice once again swap between the bench (De Neuilly-Rice) and the No.1 (Roets) shirt.
Cameron Peverett, who was appointed as the Maties captain for 2010, makes his return from injury via the bench, whilst Adnaan Oesman – who featured in last year’s Varsity Cup-winning side – fills the gap left by Van der Merwe’s promotion to the starting line-up.
The FNB Maties team: 15 Jurgen Visser, 14 Danie Poolman, 13 Stokkies Hanekom, 12 Stephan van der Merwe, 11 Tythan Adams, 10 Conrad Hoffmann, 9 Johan Herbst, 8 Tertius Daniller, 7 Jonathan Adendorf, 6 Sam Mabombo, 5 Marinus Pretorius, 4 Andrew Prior, 3 Lourens Adriaanse (captain), 2 Matthew Dobson, 1 Johan Roets.
Replacements: 16 Andrew Crausaz, 17 Mike De Neuilly-Rice, 18 Cameron Peverett, 19 Josh Strauss, 20 André Kemp, 21 Adnaan Oesman, 22 Jonathan Francke, 23 Buhle Mxunuywa.
Head coach: Chean Roux
Date: Monday, February 22
Venue: Danie Craven Stadium
Kick-off: 7.30pm
Referee: François Veldsman
