It is not expected that there will be any major surprises when the squad is announced for the opening match of the tournament.

Smith told OFM Sport that player management over the next three games will be incredibly important.

“There are two very important objectives for us.

“Firstly, it will be to perform on Friday evening. Secondly, it will be to get the guys who are not playing to be at the best that they can be.

“We will be going on tur straight after the first three games, there will be a new coach coming in and he will have new ideas as well.

“It is important to have a squad that are all on par and ready to take on the baton for the next part of the race. This is incredibly important because this is a squad environment and it is impossible to play 22 games with the game team.

“We mustn’t forget that the eight games in the Currie Cup was excellent but we didn’t have a break between those games. We were blessed to have just about all the guys available for that period, but now we also have guys like Oupa Mohoje, Aidon Davis and Luan de Bruin coming back from injury.”

Friday evening’s game at the Toyota Stadium kicks off at 19:05.

@MorganPiek OFM Sport