The Emirates Lions have made one forced change ahead of their local United Rugby Championship derby against DHL Stormers this Saturday at Emirates Airline Park. Loosehead prop Morgan Naude replaces Sti Sithole on the bench. Sithole suffered a concussion during training earlier this week.

Earlier this week, Scrum Coach Julian Redelinghuys acknowledged the quality of the reigning champions but preferred to focus on his side’s preparations ahead of Saturday’s encounter.

“There’s no doubt that the Stormers are a quality side, but in saying that our focus this week has been on our plans and how we want to execute on Saturday. We control what we can, with a sharp focus on our processes in the build-up.”

On the Lions’ performances against local opposition, the former Bok prop believes his side has the ability to turn results around in this campaign.

“We certainly want to improve our performances against local opposition. We believe if we can better our performances in local URC derbies, the results will take care of themselves. There’s no better opportunity than this Saturday at home in front of our home fans,” he concluded.

Kick-off is at 16:00

Emirates Lions

JP Smith

PJ Botha

Ruan Dreyer

Willem Alberts

Reinhard Nothnagel (c)

Emmanuel Tshituka

Ruan Venter

Francke Horn

Sanele Nohamba

Jordan Hendrikse

Quan Horn

Marius Louw

Henco van Wyk

Edwill van der Merwe

Andries Coetzee

Replacements

Jaco Visagie

Morgan Naude

Ruan Smith

Pieter Jansen van Vuren

Sibusiso Sangweni

Morne van den Berg

Gianni Lombard

Zander du Plessis

DHL Stormers

TBA