Ikeys Ready for Maties Battle

On Saturday afternoon, Danie Craven Stadium will play host to one of the most regularly anticipated derbies in Cape Town. After a disappointing result last time out, the FNB Ikey Tigers are prepared to pull out all the stops to ensure victory against FNB Maties.

“We’ve got two players returning from injury. It’s not as many as I’d hoped for but it’s still going to make a big difference because we had a very young team playing last time so they’ll bring in that extra experience that’s needed in big games,” said coach Esterhuizen.

The returning 7s players have been given some rest after winning the Bowl in the Varsity Sports 7s tournament over the long weekend. “They played eleven matches over three days, so we gave them a bit of time off. They’re good to go now, so they’ll come back well on Saturday,” said Esterhuizen.

Players and fans alike will be hoping for a better performance and result that those seen against Maties earlier on in the season. Esterhuizen remains confident that the team won’t make the same mistakes, and that this will make for an entirely different game. “We’re all feeling positive ahead of this game. In the last match, we lost too many line outs and we had a bad last ten minutes against Maties,” Esterhuizen said.

“We’ve done our homework on how to counter their line out, and we’re hoping to challenge them and win the ball more often from set plays,” he went on to explain.

“To the fans, I just want to say support the underdogs. We are going into this game as underdogs, but we’ll play the UCT way- we’ll try our best to play attractive rugby and hopefully this time we’ll get a different result,” Esterhuizen concluded.

The FNB Ikey Tigers team to take the field against FNB Maties:

15 Mike Muller, 14 Ibie Adams, 13 Liam Furniss, 12 Rico Lategan, 11 Brad Janse van Rensburg, 10 Tom Bednall, 9 James Alexander, 8 Matt Andrews, 7 Brad Bosman, 6 Michael Kennedy, 5 Duncan Saffy, 4 Jade Kriel, 3 Sam Theron, 2 Cullen Callopy, 1 Robin Murray

Replacements:

16 Msizi Zondi/Martin Chandler (TBC), 17 Jayson Landman, 18 Olewethu Hugo, 19 Gareth Ehret, 20 Dylan Tydbury, 21 Rob Anderson, 22 N/A, 23 Paul Hendry.