The top-ranked Hurricanes and eighth-placed Stormers have bolstered their lineups for their clash in Wellington today, which opens the eighth round of Super XV matches.
The Hurricanes, unbeaten in six matches, have reinstated All Blacks trio Beauden Barrett at flyhalf, Julian Savea on the left wing and Ben Franks at loosehead prop in the starting lineup. Nehe Milner-Skudder also returns at fullback.
Center Ma’a Nonu has been named to play his 150th Super XV match, becoming the fourth player and the first back to do so. He joins lock Nathan Sharpe and hookers Keven Mealamu and Corey Flynn in playing 150 games.
Springboks Duane Vermuelen and Eben Etzebeth return to the Stormers’ lineup. Lock Etzebeth has recovered from injury, while back-row forward Vermuelen resumes the captaincy after being rested last week.
Etzebeth displaces Jean Kleyn, who drops out of a match squad in which Ruan Botha takes the locking spot on the bench. Vermuelen replaces Nizaam Carr at No. 8.
“Eben is 100 percent and ready to start again,” Stormers coach Allister Coetzee said. “He is a Springbok, and he brings physicality and experience to the party, which you need against New Zealand teams.”
“I think Jean Kleyn has done a great job for us in Eben’s absence and I must give him credit, but this is our strongest possible pack at the moment, and guys like Eben and Duane [Vermeulen], both of whom are highly-regarded Springboks, will add value in the physicality stakes and in other areas too,” he added.
Coetzee said the Hurricanes, in their current form, would be hard to beat at home, though the Stormers have a 4-3 record in matches against the Wellington-based team in New Zealand.
“The Hurricanes are a quality side, they’re the best in the competition as their 6-0 record suggests,” he said. “They’re also a confident team and happy playing at home... We need to pitch up and execute our plans if we are to have a chance of beating them.”
Hurricanes assistant coach John Plumtree said he expects the Stormers to be sharper after last weekend’s 39-21 loss to the Highlanders in Dunedin, New Zealand.
“We have a lot of respect for the Stormers. They’ve been a top side for a long time and I know a lot of them,” said Plumtree, who previously coached South Africa’s Sharks.
“They will be hurting after what happened to them last week and we expect them to respond positively in terms of intensity and everything will go up another few notches this week,” he said.
Former Wallabies captain David Pocock has been promoted from the bench to the starting lineup as the second-placed ACT Brumbies, coming off a loss to the New South Wales Waratahs, take on the Bloemfontein-based Cheetahs tomorrow.
“It’s certainly not a performance selection by any means, but … we just feel that Ita [Vaea] can give us some real punch coming off the bench in the last 30 minutes,” Brumbies forwards coach Dan McKellar said.
“We’ve reviewed [our last game] and we didn’t play that well. You’ve got to give credit to the Waratahs, they played well and managed to get away with a few things in and around maul defense and those areas, but that’s just part of the game,” he added.
In other matches, the third-placed Sharks take on the Christchurch, New Zealand-based Crusaders in Durban and the fourth-placed Chiefs meet the winless Blues tomorrow. The fifth-placed Highlanders and sixth-placed Waratahs have byes.
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