Van As shows UJ's opening hand
FNB UJ head coach Hugo van As has little doubt that he will field a ‘stabilised team’ against FNB TUT when the teams clash in the opening round of the 2010 FNB Varsity Cup presented by Steinhoff International on Monday.
“When we played FNB TUT in the corresponding game last year, we had a late start to the season and little opportunity to pay attention to enough details concerning our patterns and gameplan,” Van As told varsitycup.co.za.
“This year we started earlier which has had several advantages,” he added.
“I told you earlier in the week that our conditioning is on par – meaning that we could spent more time on fine tuning our on the field aims.”
Van As, in his second year in charge of UJ, finalised his bench on Friday; centre JJ Pienaar (who took a knock to his head recently) not fit for action, but fit-again fullback Earl Lewis – who will no doubt play Super 14 rugby later this year – has been named amongst the replacements.
Ryno Luus, the top points-scorer in the 2008 Varsity Cup, has also been named on the UJ bench for Monday.
Meanwhile, there are six players in the FNB UJ’s starting line-up who have not yet played Varsity Cup rugby for their new team; they are fullback Aubrey MacDonald, inside centre Luhan Steenkamp, winger Lola Waqa, No.9 Danny Botha and lock Marnus van Huyssteen.
The FNB UJ team: 15 Aubrey MacDonald, 14 Edrich van Tonder, 13 Clinton de Klerk (captain), 12 Luhan Steenkamp, 11 Lola Waqa, 10 André Smith, 9 Danny Botha, 8 Quinten Minnaar, 7 Wendell Wehr, 6 Justin Wheeler, 5 Marnus van Huyssteen, 4 Martyn Lombard, 3 Wayne Swart, 2 Edgar Marutlulle, 1 KP du Plessis.
Replacements: 16 Brett Claassens, 17 JP Olivier, 18 David Bulbring, 19 JP Janse van Rensburg, 20 Jacques Pretorius, 21 Ryno Luus, 22 Earl Lewis, 23 Jaco Claassen.
Head coach: Hugo van As
Date: Monday, February 1
Venue: Tuks Athletic Stadium
Kick-off: 4.30pm
Referee: Tiaan Jonker
By Morris Gilbert
