Daily Archives: 12 March 2015
Scotland head coach Vern Cotter has named a team with five changes for their penultimate Six Nations Championship match against England at Twickenham on Saturday.
Cotter has brought back David Denton, Dougie Fife, Matt Scott, Jim Hamilton and Finn Russell to a Scotland team that are still looking for their first victory this year.
The five players come in to the starting team to replace Johnnie Beattie, knee injury victims Sean Lamont and Alex Dunbar, and Tim Swinson and Peter Horne.
Lions head coach Johann Ackermann has announced his team to take on the Crusaders in Christchurch this weekend.
After an injury free victory over the Blues last week, Ackermann has been able to name the same starting team this week, with just a couple of changes on the bench.
A convincing 63 / 8 victory over FNB CUT in Pretoria saw FNB UP-Tuks move past the unbeaten FNB UFS-Shimlas to the top of the FNB Varsity Cup standings.
The Free State side claimed a last-gasp 23 / 21 victory over FNB NMMU in Port Elizabeth, but that was not enough to keep their place at the top of the Log as the rampant UP-Tuks moved past them on points difference.
There were also wins for the 2 Cape sides as 3-time champions FNB Maties notched their first win of the season by edging FNB UJ 16 / 15 in Stellenbosch, while FNB UCT beat FNB NWU-Pukke 40 / 21 in a replay of last year’s final in Potchefstroom.
UP-Tuks were ruthless in their demolition of CUT, running in 9 tries to pile more pain on the newcomers who have suffered heavy defeats in every game of their debut season thus far.
After conceding 3 early tries, the NMMU Madibaz fought back bravely at home against UFS-Shimlas, only to have their hearts broken by a late penalty which leaves them languishing in 7th place with just 1 win.
Maties were also made to work hard for their victory, having gone 15 / 0 behind against UJ at one stage in Stellenbosch, but 2nd-half tries from Beyers de Villiers and Jacobus van der Merwe were just enough to secure a narrow victory for the home side.
Flank Jason Klaasen grabbed a hat-trick in Potchefstroom as defending champions UCT moved up to 3rd place on the standings with a convincing win over NWU-Pukke who drop down to 5th position with just 2 rounds left before the play-offs.