Rugby
Former Cheetah Geldenhuys on Highlanders bench─── 08:48 Fri, 15 May 2015
The Highlanders have made three changes to their starting XV to face the Toyota Cheetahs on Saturday evening in Bloemfontein.
The most notable change sees the dangerous winger Waisake Naholo being rested due to a recurring heel injury, leaving the door open for Ryan Tongia to make his Super Rugby debut.
Coach, Jamie Joseph told OFM Sport that the unknown Tongia is a very exciting player and is happy the former league star will finally get a crack at the big league.
“He’s quite an exciting player, because he don’t know about him it doesn’t mean he isn’t a good player.
“He comes from rugby league and came to us at Hawkes’ Bay and was out former winger at the start of the season and in the preseason we player he scored a number of tries,” said Joseph.
“The unfortunate thing for Ryan is that Waisake start off and hasn’t looked back, this is probably his first chance to prove himself, but he has good support in Patrick Osbourne and Ben Smith,” the former All Blacks flank added.
Lock Alex Ainley who has been bit of journeyman will also make his Super Rugby debut this weekend after recovering from a broken jaw he sustained during a club game.
Former Toyota Free State Cheetahs tighthead prop, Ross Geldenhuys has been named on bench for tomorrow evening.
The 32-year-old Geldenhuys never really settled at any teams during his time plying his trade in South Africa and represented the among other the Lions, Eastern Province Kings before going on to play ITM Cup rugby in New Zealand for Tasman.
Joseph feels that Geldenhuys has pulled his weight at the team and said that he thinks the player has finally found his rugby home.
“He really started getting some momentum as tighthead prop at Super Rugby level. You’re accurate in term of him playing for a lot of teams in South Africa.
“He came from out of the blue for me in the ITM Cup, I’ve got quite a few players in the Tasman side so I was keeping an eye on them.
“Ross’s number kept on turning up in front of me, so he has been going really good up until he got injured.
“The thing for Ross is that his first match was last weekend after 7 or 8 weeks, this competition is tough for our fittest players let alone a player who has just comeback from a couple of months off with a broken thumb.
Tomorrow evening’s match at the Free State Stadium kicks off at 19:10.
Cheetahs - 15 Clayton Blommetjies, 14 Rayno Benjamin, 13 Francois Venter, 12 Michael van der Spuy, 11 Sergeal Petersen, 10 Francois Brummer, 9 Tian Meyer, 8 Willie Britz, 7 Boom Prinsloo, 6 Tienie Burger, 5 Francois Uys (captain), 4 Carl Wegner, 3 Maks van Dyk, 2 Torsten van Jaarsveld, 1 Danie Minnie.
Replacements - 16 Stephan Coetzee, 17 BG Uys, 18 Ewald van der Westhuizen, 19 Steven Sykes, 20 Carel Greeff, 21 Shaun Venter, 22 Coenie van Wyk, 23 Raymond Rhule.
Highlanders - 15 Ben Smith (co-captain), 14 Ryan Tongia, 13 Malakai Fekitoa, 12 Richard Buckman, 11 Patrick Osborne, 10 Lima Sopoaga, 9 Aaron Smith, 8 Nasi Manu (co-captain), 7 John Hardie, 6 Gareth Evans, 5 Mark Reddish, 4 Alex Ainley, 3 Josh Hohneck, 2 Liam Coltman, 1 Brendon Edmonds.
Replacements - 16 Ash Dixon, 17 Daniel Lienert-Brown, 18 Ross Geldenhuys, 19 Tom Franklin, 20 Elliot Dixon, 21 Dan Pryor, 22 Fumiaki Tanaka, 23 Marty Banks.
Morgan Piek / OFM News
