United Rugby Championship: Bulls beat Lions in dire derby

Bulls vs Lions: In a reverse fixture of last week’s action the hosts will look to continue their domination from 15:00.

The Bulls ran away with the contest last week. The Lions, though got it badly wrong and wasted opportunities to swing momentum in their favour.

What will happen this week?

Track the action with live scores from flashscore.co.za.

Bulls vs Lions: Live scores

Team news

Bulls Director of Rugby Jake White made only one change to his starting team with, Zak Burger (scrumhalf) taking over from Embrose Papier in a rotational switch, while Cornal Hendricks, who was on Currie Cup duty earlier in the week, has been added to the replacements bench as backline cover.

“The result from last weekend when we beat the Lions at Ellis Park will mean nothing,” said White.

“We expect nothing less than another challenging encounter against the side from Johannesburg. They showed how strong they can be in the set pieces last week, while also coming at us with some clever, running rugby. We can definitely expect more of the same this weekend.”

Lions head coach Ivan van Rooyen named a new-look match 23 for their clash against the Bulls, with Jaco Kriel taking over the captaincy in the absence of Burger Odendaal, who suffered a head injury last Saturday.

Tiaan Swanepoel gets his chance at pivot, meanwhile, Matt More will start in the midfield, and exciting prospects PJ Steenkamp and Quan Horn are also in line to make their URC debuts off the bench.

“Both players and management had difficult conversations post the Bulls fixture and we felt that a better showing was required if we wanted to be competitive this week,” said Van Rooyen.

“We felt our scrums and mauls were a highlight for us against the Bulls so it’s something we would like to capitalise on come Saturday.”

Match information:

Bulls vs Lions

Date: Saturday, 5 February

Venue: Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria

SA Time: 15h00

Referee: Aimee Barrett-Theron

TV: SuperSport

Stream: DStv Now