The following is the Shark team against the Lions:-
Sharks: 15 SP Marais, 14 Odwa Ndungane, 13 Paul Jordaan, 12 Francois Steyn, 11 Lwazi Mvovo, 10 Patrick Lambie, 9 Cobus Reinach, 8 Tera Mtembu, 7 Jean Deysel, 6 Marcell Coetzee, 5 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 4 Anton Bresler, 3 Jannie du Plessis, 2 Bismarck du Plessis (captain), 1 Tendai Mtawarira.
Replacements: 16 Monde Hadebe, 17 Dale Chadwick, 18 Lourens Adriaanse, 19 Stephan Lewies, 20 Jacques Botes, 21 Ryan Kankowski, 22 Charl McLeod, 23 Fred Zeilinga, 24 Heimar Williams, 25 S'bura Sithole, 26 Jaco van Tonder.
Not much different from what was expected. One clear omission from the squad is interesting and that is Sloth Alberts. Unless Sloth is injured I think White have seen enough of him to realise that he loafs most of the time and he may find it v ery hard to get into the squad - leave alone the starting line up.
Because Supersport wants payment by the franchises to broadcast pre-season matches we will not have the opportunity to see for ourselves this game on TV. That is unfortunate - since we will have to have only media reports to fall back on in this case and they normally are biased and unreliable.
What I would like to have seen was the condition Francois Steyn is in and whether he can this year produce the goods as a 12. We will have to wait to see what happens in the Bulls game next week to see what he can produce.
Pity about Andre Esterhuizen and Swiel not being in the squad - but I suspect they may be in next week - at least on the bench.
