Marshall to start for the Blues

Marshall to start for the Blues

Benji Marshall will make his first start for the Blues when they take on the Lions at Ellis Park on Sunday morning (kick-off 2am NZT).

The star rugby league convert will line up at fullback in a Blues side featuring five changes to the one that lost to the Bulls last week.

“It’s exciting getting my first start,” Marshall said.

“I’ve been looking forward to getting another taste since the first twenty minutes I got against the Highlanders so I’ve just had to have a bit of patience, bide my time a bit and the time has come so I’m looking forward to the challenge.”

Marshall conceded it had been a challenging few weeks after not coming off the bench against the Crusaders and being left out of the match day 23 last week.

“It’s been a tough couple of weeks patience-wise. It’s a bit of the other side of the coin for me, I’m used to being in a starting line-up in league and then coming back and having to be a bit more patient, not getting on against the Crusaders and then not being in the team the week after so to get the opportunity to start, you’ve just got to take your opportunities and this is my chance.”

Blues head coach Sir John Kirwan said he’d been impressed with the way Marshall had been training at fullback.

“We’re keeping with the theme of really trying to create some internal competition and although that’s sometimes difficult to do when you haven’t had a win we believe in what we’re doing,” Kirwan said.

“We believe that Benji deserves a start at fullback, he’s jumping out of his skin, he’s ready to go, he’s spent the last couple of weeks really refining that role so we’ll put him in there.”

Charles Piutau moves from fullback to wing to accommodate the injection of Marshall as youngster Tevita Li drops out of the side.

After adding plenty of spark and scoring a try on debut last week, Pita Ahki is rewarded with a start at second five-eighths in place of Jackson Willison who moves to the bench, while Chris Noakes replaces Simon Hickey at first five-eighths.

“Noakesy deserves another crack at it. We think he’ll be really positive for us and he’s ready and raring to go.”

In the forwards, Peter Saili is suffering from a patella tendon injury as Steven Luatua moves to the back of the scrum to replace him, with Brendon O’Connor getting his first start of the season at blindside flanker.

“We’re very fortunate to have someone of Brendon’s calibre on the bench. He doesn’t want to be on the bench and every time he comes on he tells you that so it’s important we give him a start,” Kirwan said.

“With Peter being a little bit dinged up we’ve got that opportunity to play him in that role at six. I think we’ll be playing with two flying loose forwards so I’m really excited about seeing how that works out.”

Patrick Tuipulotu replaces Liaki Moli at lock, while Jordan Manihera is poised to make his Super Rugby debut after being named on the bench.

Kirwan said the focus this week had been on keeping it simple, and he was expecting a similar game to last week against the Lions this Sunday.

“The Lions play a similar type of game to the Bulls. We have to match their enthusiasm, we have to be patient with the ball, cut down our errors and take our points when they’re there. We can’t let them get away to a good start.”

Kirwan said it was important to head home to New Zealand with points from South Africa.

“It’s not desperation time but if you want to be around at the end of the tournament then you’ve got to keep in touch with the leaderboard,” he said.

“If we do that this week we’re totally in touch with the leaderboard and we’ve played four games with a 50 per cent winning record heading home and Africa out of the way with what would be seen as a pretty difficult start to the season so if we can come home from Africa with some points we’ll be in pretty good shape.”

The Blues team to face the Lions at Ellis Park on Sunday (kick off 2am NZT) is:

Starting XV

15. Benji Marshall
14. Frank Halai
13. George Moala
12. Pita Ahki
11. Charles Piutau
10. Chris Noakes
9. Piri Weepu

8. Steven Luatua
7. Luke Braid
6. Brendon O’Connor
5. Tom Donnelly
4. Patrick Tuipulotu
3. Charlie Faumuina
2. James Parsons
1. Tony Woodcock

Reserves

16. Tom McCartney
17. Sam Prattley
18, Angus Ta’avao
19. Liaki Moli
20. Jordan Manihera
21. Bryn Hall
22. Simon Hickey
23. Jackson Willison

while the lions arent what u would call a tier 1 team, they are playing at home so will be tough which is per the norm for all SA teams in SA.

i cant for the life of me understand why JK has benched hickey for the extremely overrated noakes.
hickey has for the last two games been the blues form player, so jk being the useless coach that he is, will bench hickey and kill this momentum hes having with his form.

marshall starting at fullback is a mistake, hes a flyhalf and to move one of the spXV top fullbacks piutau on the wing is similar to wrong way the crusaders keep playing dagg on the wing.

let us pray that kirwan never has anything to do with the All Blacks, cos like hammet and slackbladder, hes useless.

hope marshall has a good game, but like the hurricanes, its best to keep expectations low.

now i have to get rid of piutau from my team, :o(

 you dont think piatau wwll score on the wing naru? I got mogg on the bench, but hes in the same match as folau.

 Piatu seems to be making incremental improvements ,I often wonder if after playing for the ABs they just find it hard to put in 100% for the s15 ? Didnt Noakes play for the landers at one stage Sas ?

I cannot see how Noakes can be selected ahead pf Hickey in the flyhalf position.   It is like dropping a race horse and repalce it by a donkey in the Melbrourne Cup or the Durban July Handicap.  
That really is a bum selection - if ever there was one.

@lucky luke,

piutau could score from the wing, he is class after all, but IMO at fullback he has more opportunity to counter attack, as when fullback will make him the primary kick reicever, meaning he gets more chance to attack.

on the wing, he could be starved of possession which is my line of thinking in excluding him, :o?

@warhammer,

yeah noakes is a former highlander, was always behind slade and sopoaga in the pecking order, but he played and even started in a number of games for the deep south warriors.

funny thing is. he ws actually solid when at the highlanders, but his debut season for the blues opened my eyes to his turnstile defence which IMO is the worst of any flyhalf in the comp.