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Watts out of Sharks clash

───   14:02 Wed, 20 Aug 2014

Watts out of Sharks clash | News Article
Morgan Piek
 
Bloemfontein - The Toyota Free State Cheetahs are upbeat ahead of their 3rd round Currie Cup clash when they face the Sharks in Durban on Saturday, 23 August.
 
The men from Bloemfontein earned a fullhouse of points when they beat their franchise neighbours, the Griquas, 34-27 over the weekend.
 
Coach Rory Duncan lauded his young side for their much improved performance, but feels there's always room for improvement.
 
"This was a much better performance than the one we delivered last weekend," Duncan said.
 
"We want to stop the lineout drives. That we already started working on on Monday morning, and we have been working on it over the last few days, making sure the teams don't get momentum against us, and more so, we want to be a little more effective on our drives.
 
"Cutting out the handling errors as well, that's one of the biggest ones for us," he added.
 
The coach felt the team missed golden opportunities during their win to score more than the five tries. He told OFM Sport it is something that will have to be improved on before tackling Charl MacLeod-Henderson's men in Durban.
 
"We still made lots of mistakes, but that is a sign of a new team. We were much better on attack and defence and created lots of opportunities to score from, although we did not capitalise on all of them," said the Duncan, who led the Free State to Currie Cup glory in 2007.
  
A major concern for the side will be the injuries. Former South Africa Under-20 prop, Luan de Bruin, has been ruled out after sustaining a concussion as well as a mouth injury. De Bruin got knocked out cold during a tackle against the side from Kimberley.
 
Flyhalf Elgar Watts, who scored the side's opening try against the Peacock Blues, has been ruled out of the clash against the Sharks after sustaining a knee injury late in the match.  The player underwent a scan to his knee earlier in the week to determine the extent on the injury.
 
The defending champions are also going into the match with a lot of confidence with two wins from their two outings following a 31-24 win over the Griquas in Kimberley and a 34-17 win over the Pumas at King's Park.
 
But Duncan feels the side has flaws and is beatable, even in their own backyard.
 
"We've looked at their last two performances and if you go over the tapes and look at the performance they put out, they're really a beatable team," he said.
 
"We obviously have to be focused on the day, and play our game plan against them," Duncan concluded.
 
Saturday's match at King's Park in Durban kicks off at 19:10.
 
Other fixtures for the weekend will see the Pumas take on Griquas at the Mbombela Stadium tomorrow night at 19:10 in what is sure to be a thrilling match.
 
Saturday at 15:00 the Blue Bulls will host the Eastern Province Kings at Loftus Versfeld, while the Western Province and the Golden Lions will be locking horns at Newlands at 17:05. This match also promises to be a humdinger, with both sides unbeaten thus far in the competition.
 
Toyota Free State Cheetahs - 15 Clayton Blommetjies, 14 Rayno Benjamin, 13 Francois Venter (vc), 12 Joubert Engelbrecht, 11 Raymond Rhule, 10 Willie du Plessis, 9 Sarel Pretorius, 8 Jean Cook, 7 Neil Claasen, 6 Tienie Burger, 5 Francois Uys, 4 Carl Wegner, 3 Dolph Botha, 2 Torsten van Jaarsveld (c), 1 Kevin Stevens.
 
Replacements – 16 AJ Le Roux, 17 George Marich, 18 Henco Venter, 19 Vincent Jobo, 20 Shaun Venter, 21 Pieter-Steyn De Wet, 22 JP du Plessis.
 
 

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