Sharks team to tackle Glasgow Warriors

The Cell C Sharks shift their focus to the first of two Vodacom United Rugby Championship teams from Scotland when they face off against the Glasgow Warriors on Saturday afternoon in the second round of the competition.

Head coach Sean Everitt has made three changes to his starting line-up, bringing in Fez Mbatha for Kerron van Vuuren at hooker while Ruben van Heerden returns to the starting XV, with Gerbrandt Grobler moving to flank in the place of Henco Venter. In the final change, Murray Koster takes over from Marius Louw at centre.

Koster and replacements Lourens Adriaanse, Thembelani Bholi, James Venter and Tian Meyer all make their URC debuts for the Cell C Sharks.

Cell C Sharks assistant coach John Mcfarland highlighted the positive and negative from their round one match, citing the penalty count, but hinting at the team’s excellent defence. Against the Warriors, tightening up on discipline will have a significant influence on the game.

“The big thing we need to work on is our discipline, the penalties put us under pressure” he admitted. “Munster had 12 entries into our 22 of which 12 came from penalties – that’s the only way they got into our 22. But we’ve made great strides and there has been improvement in our discipline. I think some of the interpretations on the weekend were very different and we have to get used to them, and quickly.”

With the game played on artificial turf, Mcfarland warned that the tempo and pace will be very high which will require plenty of energy on both attack and defence.

“We’re excited about the surface we’re playing on, I think it will be a quicker game and we know Glasgow like to keep the ball in hand, so we have to make our tackles and that’s something we can’t fault the players for last weekend – that was a real positive actually.”
 

Cell C Sharks
1. Khwezi Mona
2. Fez Mbatha
3. Thomas du Toit (v/c)
4. Le Roux Roets
5. Ruben van Heerden
6. Dylan Richardson
7. Gerbrandt Grobler
8. Phepsi Buthelezi (capt)
9. Ruan Pienaar
10. Boeta Chamberlain
11. Thaakir Abrahams
12. Murray Koster
13. Werner Kok
14. Yaw Penxe
15. Curwin Bosch
 

Replacements
16. Kerron van Vuuren
17. Ntuthuko Mchunu
18. Lourens Adriaanse
19. Hyron Andrews
20. Thembelani Bholi
21. James Venter
22. Tian Meyer
23. Jeremy Ward