Super Rugby Preview – Jaguares vs Bulls

In round two of the Super Rugby season Los Jaguares have home advantage against the Bulls on Saturday. With two massive packs it looms as being a treat for the purists.

Gonzalo Quesada has made two changes. The first comes in the pack with Marcos Kremer replacing Rodrigo Bruni. They trade places from last week with it giving Los Jaguares the same loose-forward trio that played throughout 2018.

In the backs Tomás Cubelli is to make his overdue debut for Los Jaguares. He replaces Gonzalo Bertranou who is injured while Martín Landajo remains on the bench as the replacement. After two years with the Brumbies Cubelli returned to Argentina from Australia only to miss all of the 2018 campaign through injury.

While Los Jaguares were underwhelming in the opening round the Bulls were red-hot in their first outing of the season. The team from Pretoria defeated the Stormers 40-3 in the opening round of the season.

Unsurprisingly Head Coach Pote Human has kept the faith. Of the 23 who faced the Stormers only one change has been made for Los Jaguares. It comes on the wing with former Springbok Cornal Hendricks coming in for Johnny Kotze. He joins Warrick Gelant and Rosko Specimen in the back-three.

The Bulls are captained by world-class second-rower Lood de Jager. He is joined in the line-up by additional big names in South African rugby including Jessie Kriel, Trevor Nyakane, Handre Pollard, and Duane Vermeulen.

There have been five prior matches between the Bulls and Jaguares. The most recent was in the final round of the regular season in 2018 with the Bulls winning 43-34. In the earlier 2018 fixture between the sides Los Jaguares were 54-24 winners in Buenos Aires. In their prior outings Los Jaguares won 29-11 in Buenos Aires in 2016 and the Bulls won 26-13 in Pretoria in 2017.

Los Jaguares enter the match as favorites. The team will be motivated to play far better than was the case against the Lions. In addition they have been able to train normal unlike the Bulls who flew from Johannesburg to Buenos Aires via São Paulo. Jaguares go into the game as favorites to win by 10 points.

TEAMS

JAGUARES
15 Joaquín Tuculet, 14 Bautista Delguy, 13 Matías Orlando, 12 Jerónimo de la Fuente (capt.), 11 Ramiro Moyano, 10 Joaquín Díaz Bonilla, 9 Tomás Cubelli, 8 Javier Ortega Desio, 7 Marcos Kremer, 6 Pablo Matera, 5 Tomás Lavanini, 4 Guido Petti, 3 Santiago Medrano, 2 Agustín Creevy 1 Mayco Vivas

Replacements: 16 Julián Montoya, 17 Juan Pablo Zeiss, 18 Enrique Pieretto, 19 Matías Alemanno, 20 Rodrigo Bruni, 21 Martín Landajo, 22 Juan Cruz Mallía, 23 Matías Moroni

BULLS
15 Warrick Gelant, 14 Cornal Hendricks, 13 Jessie Kriel, 12 Burger Odendaal, 11 Rosko Specman, 10 Handre Pollard, 9 Embrose Papier, 8 Duane Vermeulen, 7 Hanro Liebenberg, 6 Ruan Steenkamp, 5 Lood de Jager (capt.), 4 Jason Jenkins, 3 Trevor Nyakane, 2 Schalk Brits, 1 Lizo Gqoboka

Replacements: 16 Corniel Els, 17 Simphiwe Matanzima, 18 Dayan van der Westhuizen, 19 Eli Snyman, 20 Thembelani Bholi, 21 Ivan van Zyl, 22 Manie Libbok, 23 Dylan Sage

Date: Saturday February 23
Kick-Off: 6:40pm (Argentina)
Venue: Veléz Sarsfield, Buenos Aires
Referee: Brendon Pickerill (New Zealand)
Assistant Referees: Rasta Rasivhenge (South Africa), and Mike Fraser (New Zealand)
TMO: Santiago Borsani (Argentina)