Emirates Lions head coach, Ivan van Rooyen named a new-look match 23 ahead of his side’s return leg trip to Loftus in Round 9 of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship.

Disappointed with his team’s outing at Emirates Airline Park last week, Van Rooyen is adamant that his team has the ability to up the ante against their neighbors from across the Jukskei.

“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.

“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.”

On team changes Van Rooyen said:

“It’s an opportunity once again for others to step up and show us what they can do on the big stage. We spoke last week about chances and how we as a group pride ourselves in creating these kinds of opportunities for players.”

Springbok Jaco Kriel takes over the captaincy reigns from Burger Odendaal who suffered a head injury last Saturday. Tiaan Swanepoel gets his chance at pivot, with Matt More is being afforded a starting opportunity after touring with the squad in September last year. Exciting prospects PJ Steenkamp and Quan Horn are also in line to make their VURC debuts off the replacements bench.

Kick-off is at 15:00

Emirates Lions

15. Divan Rossouw 14. Stean Pienaar 13. Manuel Rass 12. Matt More 11. Edwill van der Merwe 10. Tiaan Swanepoel 9. Andre Warner (vc) 8. Francke Horn 7. Emmanuel Tshituka 6. Jaco Kriel (c)  5. Ruben Schoeman 4. Ruhan Straeuli 3. Carlu Sadie 2. PJ Botha 1. Sti Sithole Replacements: 16. Morne Brandon 17. Morgan Naude 18. Ruan Dreyer 19. Ruan Venter 20. PJ Steenkamp 21. Morne van den Berg 22. EW Viljoen 23. Quan Horn