The Cheetahs wrapped up their preparations for the tournament with a convincing 78-7 win over Zimbabwe on Saturday morning in a hit-out session to give the players some game time.

In the warm-up both the trialist, Enver Brandt, and the centre, David Brits, each dotted down for a hat-trick of tries.

The Cheetahs coach, Hawies Fourie, was pleased with the overall performance against Zimbabwe but feels that there are still quite a lot of work before their opening game of the Toyota Challenge Cup.

“It was a good practice session for us as most of the players last played in August.

“In the first half our scrums were good, but we made too many handling mistakes and we didn’t make the best use of the opportunities on offer.

“After the half time break, it went better. The forwards got better ball possession and the backs rounded off a lot better.

“Overall, the scrums were very good and we managed to scrum a couple of tries with the lineout drives.

“There is, however, quite a bit of work to be done before we face the Stormers on the weekend.”

The tournament kicks off on Saturday evening with the Cheetahs up against the Stormers on Saturday evening at 17:30.

Morgan Piek/OFM Sport