Super Rugby Pre-season – Bulls vs Jaguares Preview

It is now a week out of the start of the Super Rugby season. With the clock ticking the teams are finalizing their details with an eye to beginning the competition strongly. The Bulls vs Jaguares is a pre-season match taking place on Saturday in Pretoria.

For Los Jaguares the future is the second of two warm-up matches ahead of the 2018 season. In their prior warm-up they faced the Argentina XV in Buenos Aires. Coach Mario Ledesma experimented for that fixture and he has now gone for a line-up which sees many regulars overlooked in favor of younger talent.

Ledesma and Jaguares fans alike can breath a little easier now as the first choice props have been declared fit. Felipe Arregui and Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro will start together with Agustín Creevy in the front-row.

With the scrum having been a serious weakness in recent times it is of note that the bulk of Tomás Lavanini and Matías Alemanno have been selected to lock the scrum. The more mobile Guido Petti and Marcos Kremer have been named among the replacements.

Pablo Matera will make his captaincy debut, doing so from flanker. Javier Ortega Desio and Tomás Lezana complete the starting forwards. 

Daniel Hourcade’s first choice scrum-half for the most part, since he took charge of Argentina in 2013, has been Martín Landajo. But Ledesma has again opted for Gonzalo Bertranou as his starting no 9. Nicolás Sánchez will hold the reigns outside Bertranou at fly half.

The starting mid-field is 100% new. Ledesma has gone for two players in their natural positions but positions in which they were not used by prior coaches. Bautista Ezcurra starts at inside center and Emiliano Boffelli outside him. They were used as wingers last season.

Joaquín Tuculet and Ramiro Moyano start in the back-three with Bautista Delguy also doing so. Delguy is a newcomer, selected by Ledesma.

The Bulls are coached by former USA Eagles Head Coach John Mitchell. He left his post at the Eagles to continue his coaching career in South Africa.

Mitchell’s team to face Los Jaguares will be captained from the second-row by Lood de Jager. Many of the team’s other high-profile names are to feature as replacements. Both Jesse Kriel and Handre Pollard are to be used as substitutes.

Despite the match being a pre-season war-up fixture it is to be treated as a genuine fixture by all involved. The Bulls won the fixture in April 2017 by 26-13 in Pretoria. In 2016 Los Jaguares won 29-11 in Buenos Aires. The split results indicate that a competitive match is again likely.

The match will be played on the ‘B’ field of Loftus Versfeld.  Kick-off for the match is scheduled of 7pm local time and midday Argentina. On February 17 Los Jaguares will officially open their season, taking on the Stormers on February 17 in Cape Town.

BULLS
15 Francois Brummer, 14 Andell Loubser, 13 Dries Swanepoel, 12 JT Jackson, 11 Jade Stighling, 10 Manie Libbok, 9 Embrose Papier, 8 Jano Venter, 7 Themba Bholi, 6 Marco van Staden, 5 Lood de Jager (capt.), 4 Ruben van Heerden, 3 Frans van Wyk, 2 Edgar Marutlulle, 1 Trevor Nyakane

Replacements: 16 Warrick Gelant, 17 Divan Rossouw, 18 Jesse Kriel, 19 Burger Odendaal, 20 Johnny Kotze, 21 Handre Pollard, 22 Andre Warner, 23 Hanro Liebenberg, 24 Jason Jenkins, 25 Roelof Smit, 26 RG Snyman, 27 Conraad van Vuuren, 28 Jaco Visagie, 29 Pierre Schoeman, 30 Jan-Henning Campher, 31 Matthys Basson, 32 Lizo Gqoboka, 33 Shaun Adendorff, 34 Theo Maree

JAGUARES
15 Joaquín Tuculet, 14 Bautista Delguy, 13 Emiliano Boffelli, 12 Bautista Ezcurra, 11 Ramiro Moyano, 10 Nicolás Sánchez, 9 Gonzalo Bertranou, 8 Tomás Lezana, 7 Javier Ortega Desio, 6 Pablo Matera (capt.), 5 Tomás Lavanini, 4 Matías Alemanno, 3 Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro, 2 Agustín Creevy, 1 Felipe Arregui

Replacements: 16 Julián Montoya, 17 Nicolás Leiva, 18 Javier Díaz, 19 Juan Pablo Zeiss, 20 Guido Petti, 21 Marcos Kremer, 22 Juan Manuel Leguizamón, 23 Leonardo Senatore, 24 Martín Landajo, 25 Juan Martín Hernández, 26 Joaquín Díaz Bonilla, 27 Santiago González Iglesias, 28 Matías Orlando, 29 Sebastián Cancelliere