The Vodacom United Rugby Championship returns for a festive round of fixtures this weekend, with derbies taking centre stage in Round 10. The derby action kicks off in South Africa on Friday afternoon as Cell C Sharks host Emirates Lions. Emirates Lions head coach, Ivan van Rooyen announced his squad that will travel to Durban with four changes to the team that beat Stade Francais Paris a week ago at Emirates Airline Park.
Up front, three changes were made. At hooker, Jaco Visagie is replaced by PJ Botha while Pieter Jansen van Vuren makes way for Reinhard Nothnagel to return at lock and captain. Darrien Landsberg replaces Jaco Kriel in a loose combination that is also showing two positional changes. Ruan Venter replaces Emmanuel Tshituka at number 8 with Tshituka moving to 6.
at the back, Rynhardt Jonker replaces the injured Henco van Wyk in the only change made.
Emirates Lions: 15. Andries Coetzee, 14. Edwill van der Merwe, 13. Rynhardt Jonker, 12. Marius Louw, 11. Quan Horn, 10. Jordan Hendrikse, 9. Sanele Nohamba, 8. Ruan Venter, 7. Darrien Landsberg, 6. Emmanuel Tshituka, 5. Reinhard Nothnagel (c), 4. Willem Alberts, 3. Asenathi Ntlabakanye, 2. PJ Botha, 1. JP Smith. Replacements: 16. Jaco Visagie, 17. Sti Sithole, 18. Ruan Smith, 19. Pieter Jansen van Vuren, 20. Jaco Kriel, 21. André Warner, 22. Gianni Lombard, 23. Stean Pienaar.
