The Toyota Free State Cheetahs will be looking to wrap up their 2018 Currie Cup campaign on a high note this week when they host the Pumas in Bloemfontein.
After five matches in the competition, the Free State has not managed to secure a win. It is a given that even if they beat the Pumas on Friday, they will end their season at the bottom of the log.
The coach, Daan Human, conceded that the season hasn’t gone according to plan, however, they are hungry for a win.
“To be perfectly honest, we are very disappointed that we could not play as well in the second half as we did in the first half against Griquas.
“We didn’t have a bench to make the impact which we would have liked, while they had a strong bench.
I am really glad about the way that we played in the first half. That proves that we can do things and that we can also score tries. They came out all guns blazing in the second half, and once we started playing catch-up rugby, we started making mistakes, which led to their tries.
“We are really looking forward to this weekend, we are playing at home and are hoping to end the campaign on a high.
“We are hungry for a win, we can’t wait for a win and we want the win.
“Although the Pumas are going to be a very tough team to beat, we just have to be very clever against them, and we do have a couple of plans in place.
“Hopefully we can finish off the campaign with a win for our supporters.”
This game on Friday at the Toyota Stadium kicks off at 17:00 and will be a curtain raiser for the Guinness Pro14 match between the Cheetahs and Ulster.
Toyota Free State Cheetahs – 15 Adriaan Carelse, 14 Ali Mgijima, 13 Carel-Jan Coetzee, 12 Tertius Kruger, 11 Vuyani Maqina, 10 Ernst Stapelberg, 9 Rudy Paige, 8 Daniel Maartens, 7 Jannes Snyman, 6 Abongile Nonkontwana, 5 Louis Conradie, 4 Dennis Visser, 3 Reinach Venter, 2 Elandre Huggett, 1 Johan Kotze.
Replacements – 16 Hanno Snyman, 17 Stephan van Schalkwyk, 18 Nardus Erasmus, 19 Luigy van Jaarsveld, 20 Dian Badenhorst, 21 Reinhardt Erwee, 22 Maputa Dolo.
Pumas – 15 Devon Williams, 14 Morné Joubert, 13 Neil Maritz, 12 Ryan Nell, 11 Ruwellyn Isbel, 10 Christopher Smith, 9 Stefan Ungerer, 8 Jeandré Rudolph, 7 Willie Engelbrecht, 6 Marnus Schoeman, 5 Hugo Kloppers (Captain), 4 Le Roux Roets, 3 Andrew Beerwinkel, 2 Marko Janse van Rensburg, 1 Morgan Naudé.
Replacements – 16 Simon Westraadt, 17 De-Jay Terblanche, 18 Cameron Lindsay, 19 Francois Kleinhans, 22 Abrie Griesel, 21 Kobus Marais, 22 Henko Marais. – MORGAN PIEK
