There is only one change to the starting line-up of the Blue Bulls for their Currie Cup clash against the Leopards at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium on Friday, with Fudge Mabeta taking over at lock from injured Juandré Kruger.
The highly impressive Kruger sustained an an ankle injury in the dominant win over Griquas at Loftus Versfeld last week and has been ruled out of action for the weekend.
In another compulsory move, Blue Bulls coach Pine Pienaar had to replace Chiliboy Ralepelle, with the hooker being selected in the Springboks World Cup group. Former Leopards rake, Willie Wepener moves onto the bench.
Pienaar decided not to change the winning side that beat Griquas last weekend and indicated that players returning from injury, like Dewald Potgieter, Gerhard van den Heever and Ruan Snyman will be considered for selection when the second round of the competition kicks into gear next week.
"We have just managed to establish some sort of rhythm and momentum against Griquas and it is something we would like to build on. It was important to use the same players who created that for this match and I am expecting them to improve on that," explained the Blue Bulls boss.
Gary Botha, who will captain the Blue Bulls, insisted that they will not look at the poor log position of their opponents in their mental preparations.
"There are no easy matches in the competition and the Leopards are one of those teams that never lies down. We will focus on what worked for us against Griquas and try to improve on that and try and execute better on those aspects of play we were not happy about," he said.
Blue Bulls: 15 Jurgen Visser, 14 Akona Ndungane, 13 Zane Kirchner, 12 Wynand Olivier, 11 Bjorn Basson, 10 Louis Fouché, 9 Jano Vermaak, 8 CJ Stander, 7 Arno Botha, 6 Warwick Tecklenburg, 5 Fudge Mabeta, 4 Flip van der Merwe, 3 Werner Kruger, 2 Gary Botha (captain), 1 Dean Greyling.
Replacements: 16 Willie Wepener, 17 Rossouw de Klerk, 18 Gerrit-Jan van Velze, 19 Jono Ross, 20 Dustin Jinka, 21 Marnitz Boshoff, 22 Francois Venter.
Date: Friday, August 26 2011
Venue: Royal Bafokeng Stadium, Rustenburg
Kick-off: 19.10 (17.10 GMT)
Referee: Joey Salmans
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