The Emirates Lions take on Irish club Leinster at 16:00 (SA Time) in the second match of this weekend’s Vodacom United Rugby Championship double header of fixtures taking place at Emirates Airline Park.
Still in the running for a top 8 spot, the Emirates Lions would need a full house of points against Leinster and a repeated effort against Zebra Parma next weekend at Loftus.
Emirates Lions head coach, Ivan van Rooyen has made three changes to the starting lineup who did duty against Glasgow Warriors last week in the EPCR Challenge Cup QF. Young Rhynardt Rijnsburger gets his first start of the season at loosehead prop. JP Smith covers for him on the bench. Ruan Delport slots in for the injured Ruan Venter and in the backline, Stean Pienaar comes in for Rabz Maxwane. Both Venter and Maxwane suffered head knocks in last week’s game and have been rested this week as a precaution.
Speaking about the possibility of still qualifying for the playoffs, Emirates Lions captain Marius Louw believes his team’s efforts will determine how far they’ll go in the championship.
”The mood in the camp has been great and you can see it in the way that we have been playing over the past few games, said the Lions skipper. We’re not out of the competition completely so I wouldn’t necessarily throw us off the bus just yet. In essence, we’ll do what we can, as best as we can and for as long as we can and see how that goes,” he concluded.
Emirates Lions: 15. Quan Horn, 14. Stean Pienaar, 13. Manuel Rass, 12. Marius Louw (c), 11. Edwill van der Merwe, 10. Gianni Lombard, 9. Sanele Nohamba, 8. Francke Horn, 7. Ruan Delport 6. Jaco Kriel, 5. Ruben Schoeman, 4. Willem Alberts, 3. Asenathi Ntlabakanye, 2. PJ Botha, 1. Rhynardt Rijnsburger. Replacements: 16. Morné Brandon, 17. JP Smith, 18. Ruan Dreyer, 19. Darrien Landsberg, 20. Travis Gordon, 21. Morné van den Berg, 22. Rynhardt Jonker, 23. Andries Coetzee.