Dick Muir, the coach of the Emerging Springboks have  announced his team on Monday to take on the British & Irish Lions at Newlands on Tuesday the 23rd June 2009.

The team will be captained by Vodacom Blue Bulls flanker Dewald Potgieter, who was skipper of the South African Schools side in 2005.

“We are blessed with the amount of depth we have in South African rugby and the group of players assembled here proves that. We are wary of the fact that the British & Irish Lions will be looking to bounce back after their defeat in the first Test, but I’m confident that we’ll be competitive against them on Tuesday evening,” said Muir.

Muir will be assisted by Jerome Paarwater and Stanley Raubenheimer, while Charles Wessels, the Springboks’ Logistics Manager, has been appointed Team Manager of the Emerging Springbok side.

Emerging Springbok team to play the British & Irish Lions:

15. Zane Kirchner (Vodacom Blue Bulls)

14. Luzuko Vulindlu (The Sharks)

13. Deon van Rensburg (Platinum Leopards)

12. Morgan Newman (Vodacom Western Province)

11. Bjorn Basson (GWK Griquas)

10. Earl Rose (Xerox Golden Lions)

9. Jano Vermaak (Xerox Golden Lions)

8. Duane Vermeulen (Vodacom Western Province)

7. Jean Deysel (The Sharks)

6. Dewald Potgieter (c) (Vodacom Blue Bulls)

5. Wilhelm Steenkamp (Vodacom Blue Bulls)

4. Steven Sykes (The Sharks)

3. Werner Kruger (Vodacom Blue Bulls)

2. Bandise Maku (Vodacom Blue Bulls)

1. Wian du Preez (Vodacom Free State Cheetahs)

Reserves:

16. Tiaan Liebenberg (Vodacom Western Province)

17. Pat Cilliers (The Sharks)

18. Franco van der Merwe (Xerox Golden Lions)

19. Jacques Botes (The Sharks)

20. Heini Adams (Vodacom Blue Bulls)

21. Willem de Waal (Vodacom Western Province)

22. Danwel Demas (Vodacom Free State Cheetahs)

Source: sarugby.co.za 

The British & Irish Lions have named their test team to face the Springboks on Saturday in the first of three tests.

The side to face the Springboks at the newly renamed ABSA Stadium includes six Welshmen, five Irishmen and four Englishmen, with a further three Welshmen, three Irishmen and one Englishman named on the replacements bench.

Ireland’s Paul O’Connell captains the side from the second row, where he is joined by Wales international Alun-Wyn Jones.

Elsewhere up front, previous Lions Test players Gethin Jenkins and Phil Vickery are selected at prop, with Lee Mears packing down between them in the front row.

Leicester’s Tom Croft, who missed out on selection for the original 37-man Lions squad back in April, is named at blindside flanker, with Irish duo David Wallace and Jamie Heaslip at openside and No8 respectively.

Mike Phillips and Stephen Jones form a Welsh half-back partnership, with 2005 Lions skipper Brian O’Driscoll selected outside Cardiff Blues star Jamie Roberts in the centres.

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The British & Irish Lions beat the Southern Kings from the Eastern Cape 20 – 8 Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth on Sunday , but the Lions definitely did not have it all their own way.

In a match marking the inauguration of a stadium named after South Africa’s favourite son and commemorating a momentous juncture in the country’s history the rag-tag Kings played with appropriate passion and spirit.

The Kings might have been drawn from all corners of the country, indeed from the world, and had little time to prepare but they responded to the gauntlet thrown down by the Lions, when they named a macro pack in their effort to grind out a sixth successive win, with gusto.

In the end the tourists succeeded, but the Kings, before the biggest crowd of the tour (some 35 800), would have shaken the Lions’ confidence ahead of Saturday’s first test in Durban.

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The British and Irish Lions kept their unbeaten record alive, when they edged a willing Western Province team 26-23 at a cold and wet Newlands on Saturday.

But for a few late penalties, the result of a substitution by the home team, the tourists may well have lost their unbeaten run on their South African safari.

Replacement flyhalf James Hook landed the match-winner in the 76th minute, the second of two penalties WP conceded at scrum time after bringing JD Moller on for Wicus Blaauw.

While the Province coaching staff will ponder what could have been, the game gave the tourists plenty of food for thought – with the first Test against South Africa just a week away.

The British & Irish Lions continued their 100% win record on their South African tour by beating the Sharks 39 – 3 in Durban on Wednesday night.

At the final whistle the Lions had scored five tries to nil in return for their massive domination of possession and field position in a match that at times gave the impression the tourists were more set on going through their formations and patterns rather than pushing for an emphatic victory.

That it eventually ended up in a 36-point victory would have given the Lions’ management great satisfaction for the tourists sometimes eschewed, and sometimes squandered a number of scoring opportunities.

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Head Coach of the British & Irish Lions Tour Ian McGeechan and Manager Gerald Davies have announced their team to face the Sharks on Wednesday in Durban with Paul O’Connell as captain.

Davies said, “We are now halfway through the provincial matches prior to the First Test and the important factor is that the Lions are unbeaten. The next challenge is the Sharks in Durban. The selected team will want to ensure that the one hundred percent playing record is maintained with a victory at ABSA Stadium which is also the venue of the First Test.”

Commenting on the team selection Head Coach Ian McGeechan said, “I am delighted that as we head into the fourth match we only have one player who is unavailable for selection. (more…)

The British & Irish Lions have achieved all their objectives thus far by winning all three first games. They now move from the Highveld to the coast for their next games and have sounded a strong warning to the Springboks ahead of their three tests.

The Lions have moved to Durban to begin preparations for Wednesday’s clash with the Sharks. As it turns out, both teams will be in what used to be known as the Last Outpost of the British Empire for the first part of the week as the Boks are gathering on Tuesday to start the count-down to the 20 June test match in that city.

The Lions were pushed before losing 26-24 to the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein at the weekend, but they showed in the first phase of three matches where the chief objective was to give all the players a run in the Lions jersey that there are several areas where they could trouble the Boks.

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