The Leopards will kick-off their Currie Cup First Division campaign in East London tomorrow afternoon when they face the Border Bulldogs.

The Leopards will be targeting a fast start against a tricky opponent as they will attempt to reach at least the semi-finals of the competition.

The Leopards setpiece has been a major work-on following the recent SA Cup, and they have been working on their defence out wide as well.

The Leopards coach, Matthew Proudfoot, told OFM Sport that they have to convert their chances as well.

“Definitely our setpiece - our lineout wasn't proficient,” said Proudfoot on the aspects of the game where they have focused on between competition.

“We were inconsistent in our lineout and I felt the scrum developed well through the back end of the competition. We were starting to apply a lot of pressure with our scrum, which is good.

“But we were inconsistent with our lineout. So that was the first area. The second area, we were averaging, I think, 36% conversion rate when we were up in the opposition 22, which is below par. You want to have about a 50% conversion rate there.

“So that has been the second area. We've really spent a lot of time on that. So we were getting a lot of pressure, building pressure to the opposition 22 and then conceding the turnovers.

“So that has been the second biggest part of our game. And then the third area has been defensively. We conceded a lot of tries and that being, it was in the early days when we played the three big sides, but particularly our edge defence.

“We wanted to get a lot more aggressive on our edge defence, not give teams the ability to play wide. If you think the way EP plays, you think the way Border plays, you think the way the Falcons play, they play with a lot of width.

“So we felt we gave too much yardage on the edge defence. So we've tried to be more aggressive. So those have been the big three areas we've tried to focus on.”

Saturday’s match at Police Park in East London kicks off at 15:00. Meanwhile, the Valke will host the Boland Cavaliers in Kempton Park, and the SWD Eagles are at home to Eastern Province in George.

Leopards - 15 André Grobler, 14 Naiden Jaarts, 13 Duncan van Vuuren, 12 Tjaart Benadé, 11 Sinio Tsontyi, 10 Charles Williams, 9 Sanaele Zungu, 8 Khwezi Mafu (captain), 7 JL de Lange, 6 Chris Vermaak, 5 Mncedisi Dlwengu, 4 Stehan Krugel, 3 Kowie Roos, 2 Chyle van Zyl, 1 Ruben du Plessis

Replacements - 16 Jordan McLoughlin, 17 Jumbo Shikufa, 18 Ntobeko Shezi, 19 Chris van Heerden, 20 Buhle Qaba, 21 Ryan Smit, 22 Marius Viviers, 23 Christiaan Vlok

Morgan Piek OFM Sport