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 that 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. We didn’t have a bench to make the impact which we would have liked, while they had a strong bench.

“We are digging deep and I still believe that there are a lot of positives. 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.

@MorganPiek OFM Sport