The Southern Kings will have one final tour match against the Melbourne Rebels on Saturday before returning to South Africa for the remainder of their Super Rugby campaign.
The Kings have silenced a lot of their critics or to put it bluntly, haters, when they drew against the log leaders Brumbies a week ago. The Kings outscored the Brumbies 4 tries to 2 and received 3 log points, 1 bonus points for their 4 tries and 2 for the draw.
Before the Kings went on tour they had a good run of home games, winning their opener against the Western Force and two close games against last years runners up the Sharks and defending champions the Chiefs. The results from their home games could have given them some confidence for the somewhat unknown for a team that is hungry to play rugby and to show the rest of the rugby public they deserve to be in this competition.
The tour would either have been one to crush their spirits or draw the team closer as a unite when they do battle in the unknown. The Kings spirits are however not crushed and they can go into their last match with confidence and even backing themselves for their first away win after conquering the unknown in some way but definitely standing stronger as a unite from when they left the comforts of their home ground and their passionate Kings Army.
The Kings are growing week by week, they came into this competition as a strong defensive team and many will know that defensive can only carry you for so long. The coaches kept on saying they must keep more possession and do more with the ball in hand. In the last 3 games we have seen more of the Kings attacking play, even though they received a hiding from 7 times Super Rugby Champions the Crusaders they did manage to score 2 tries. Its more in the last two games where we have seen what they can do with good ball. They came close to scoring 4 tries against the Hurricanes two weeks ago and pulled off a draw against the Brumbies last week by scoring 4 tries.
Captain Andries Strauss said: “There were a few crucial areas that we still need to work on, such as being aware of the space on the field, limiting the opponent’s space and getting used to the levels of pressure on the field, but these are things we can only learn on the field, through experience,”
“For many of the players this has been their first tour, and they have gained a lot of new experiences through the tour, both on and off the field,” he said.
Looking at the game this weekend he said: “The Rebels have come back very strong against the Western Force last week. Many people have written them off after they took a hiding in the game against the Sharks, but they are not to be underestimated,”
The Kings have a wonder opportunity to take the ultimate reward for a tour that could easily be labeled as one of character, guts, determination, courage and a never say die attitude.
Some might tip the Kings as being favourites going into their last game, but im sure Alan Solomons and his team would not mind keeping the underdog tag for this game.
Kickoff will be at 11:40 (SA time)
Southern Kings:
15 George Whitehead 14 Sergeal Petersen 13 Waylon Murray 12 Andries Strauss (c) 11 Ronnie Cooke 10 Demetri Catrakilis 9 Shaun Venter 8 Cornell du Preez 7 Wimpie van der Walt 6 Devin Oosthuizen 5 Rynier Bernardo 4 Steven Sykes (vc) 3 Grant Kemp 2 Hannes Franklin 1 Schalk Ferreira
Replacements:
16 Bandise Maku 17 Kevin Buys 18 David Bulbring 19 Jacques Engelbrecht 20 Nicolas Vergallo 21 Marcello Sampson 22 Siviwe Soyzwapi
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