EP Kings head coach, Brent Janse van Rensburg had to make injury enforced changes to his side for their upcoming match against the Pumas at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth on Friday evening.
Both George and Tim Whitehead picked up injuries in their 25 - 33 loss against the Durbanites. George took a knock to his knee, while Tim picked up a concussion.
The injuries resulted in a reshuffle in the backline with experienced centre Ronnie Cooke replacing and taking over the vice-captaincy role from Tim at outside centre, this means JP du Plessis will move to inside centre.
"Ronnie has plenty of experience and we believe we will benefit from his leadership abilities as well," Janse van Rensburg said.
Karlo Aspeling will get his first start at flyhalf replacing the injured George, which makes way for the versatile Hansie Graaff on the bench. Jacques Engelbrecht also replaces Stefan Willemse on the flank, who moves to the bench.
"But Stefan hasn't been able to take full part in our practices in the early part of the week, so we will start with Jacques and use Stefan on the bench," Janse van Rensburg said.
The Kings coach confirmed that flyhalves Elgar Watts and Gary van Aswegen were still on the injured list and not available for selection.
Janse van Rensburg is backing his team to make further improvement this week after a fighting performance against the Sharks saw them lose 33-25 in Durban. He acknowledged, though, that they would face a fired-up Pumas outfit.
"We know we need to up for a big challenge against the Pumas, who are a tough, abrasive side and play an attacking game," Janse van Rensburg said. "We know we had a chance to put away the Sharks on Saturday, but did not take our opportunities and we made it hard for ourselves.
"But there has been improvement and lessons have been learnt, and it is up to us to keep working hard and to keep looking for consistent improvement each week."
Kick-off is 19:00.
EP Kings:
15 Scott van Breda 14 Siyanda Grey 13 Ronnie Cooke 12 JP du Plessis 11 Luther Obi 10 Karlo
Aspeling 9 Enrico Acker 8 Tim Agaba 7 Jacques Engelbrecht 6 Luke Watson (captain) 5 Cornell
Hess 4 Steven Sykes 3 Tom Botha 2 Martin Ferreira 1 Schalk Ferreira
Substitutes:
16 Lizo Gqoboka 17 Edgar Marutlulle 18 Simon Kerrod 19 Stefan Willemse 20 Thembelani Bholi 21 Kevin Luiters 22 Hansie Graaff
Pumas:
15 JW Bell 14 Bernado Botha 13 Jerome Pretorius 12 Stefan Watermeyer (captain) 11 Rosco
Spekman 10 JC Roos 9 Faf de Klerk 8 Jason-Colin Fraser 7 Uzair Cassiem 6 Marnus Schoeman 5 Marius Coetzer 4 Rudi Matthee 3 Khwezi Mona 2 Frank Herne 1 Corne Fourie
Substitutes:
16 Francois du Toit 17 De-Jay Terblanche 18 Giant Mtyanda 19 Jaco Bouwer 20 Reynier van Rooyen 21 Justin van Staden 22 Hoffmann Maritz
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