The Emirates Lions make the trip to the Mother City this weekend to face current champions DHL Stormers in Round 11 of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship on New Year’s Eve at the DHL Stadium.

Following last week’s record attendance over Christmas (117 000) across all URC matches in Round 10 of the competition, this weekend’s series of matches are sure to be achieve similar numbers as local derbies take centre stage.

Centre Marius Louw leads the Emirates Lions side on Saturday night in absence of regular skipper Reinhard Nothnagel who suffered an ankle injury against the Cell C Sharks. Returning to partner Louw in the midfield is Henco van Wyk who slots back in at 13 after missing out last week.

Looking to achieve a repeat of last year’s result against the same opposition, Emirates Lions defense guru Jaque Fourie says it will take a massive effort by his team to counter the high-flying Stormers but backs his side to improve come Saturday.

“It’s a roughly a year ago since we beat them in Cape Town, but they are a different side now not to mention title holders, said Fourie. In addition, they’ve picked up good momentum during the season and it’s now for us to put last Friday’s result behind us by channeling a positive approach towards a win on Saturday,” said the former Bok centre.

The straight-talking Fourie believes his team’s defensive standards would need a huge step up from last week’s disappointing result against the Sharks, something they’ve been focusing on in downtown Johannesburg this week.

“We are going to have stay connected in our defense lines as well as looking at closing their space and time,” he cautioned.

“They are a team who are dangerous on counter-attack and we saw last week how quickly they scored so it’s key for us to maintain our shape,” he concluded.

Young Jarod Cairns cracks the starting XV in what has been a steady rise for the former Paul Roos Gymnasium learner through the Lions’ junior ranks. He combines with Ruan Venter who shifts to number 7 with Emmanuel Tshituka packing down at the back of the scrum.

Elsewhere, Morne van den Berg, Manuel Rass and Morgan Naude return to the side as impact players.

Kick off is at 19:00 on Saturday (SA time)

DHL Stormers (TBC)

Emirates Lions

1. JP Smith
2. PJ Botha
3. Asenathi Ntlabakanye
4. Willem Alberts
5. Pieter Jansen van Vuren
6. Jarod Cairns
7. Ruan Venter
8. Emmanuel Tshituka
9. Sanele Nohamba
10. Jordan Hendrikse
11. Edwill van der Merwe
12. Marius Louw (c)
13. Henco van Wyk
14. Rabz Maxwane
15. Quan Horn

Replacements

16. Jaco Visagie
17. Morgan Naude
18. Ruan Smith
19. Ruben Schoeman
20. Sibusiso Sangweni
21. Morne van den Berg
22. Gianni Lombard
23. Manuel Rass