Luke Watson: Leads the Kings
Back-rower Luke Watson will lead an all-South African Kings starting XV in their Super Rugby opener against the Western Force in Port Elizabeth on Saturday.
Watson, centre Andries Strauss and hooker Bandise Maku are the only Springboks in the side.
Kenyan forward Daniel Adongo and Kiwi utility back Hadleigh Parkes are both amongst the replacements as the foreigners in the matchday squad.
The franchise's three other foreign players were not considered due to injury. Argentine scrum-half Nicolas Vergallo has been ruled out with a muscle injury in his lower body, while his compatriot, flank Tomas Leonardi, is struggling with a chest injury.
French hooker Virgile Lacombe will be sidelined for a few more weeks with a back injury.
The Kings recently included all five of their imports in a 35-man squad released to Sanzar, ignoring SARU's rule which allows only two foreign players per squad.
Kings: 15 SP Marais, 14 Sergeal Petersen, 13 Ronnie Cooke, 12 Andries Strauss, 11 Marcello Sampson, 10 Demetri Catrakilis, 9 Shaun Venter, 8 Luke Watson (c), 7 Wimpie van der Walt, 6 Cornell du Preez, 5 Steven Sykes, 4 David Bulbring, 3 Kevin Buys, 2 Bandise Maku, 1 Schalk Ferreira.
Replacements: 16 Edgar Marutlulle, 17 Jaco Engels, 18 Daniel Adongo, 19 Jacques Engelbrecht, 20 Johan Herbst, 21 George Whitehead, 22 Hadleigh Parkes.
Date: February 23
Kick-off: 19:10 local (17:10 GMT)
Venue: Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Port Elizabeth
Referee: Lourens van der Merwe (South Africa)
Assistant referees: Stuart Berry (South Africa), Christie du Preez (South Africa)
Television match official: Johann Meuwessen (South Africa)
Comments
letsgoboks says...
I love the way the southern king fans attack UBA05 - geez.
If you want facts... Look at their current record in the domestic scene. That alone is enough... but then you have the politics which will destroy this team.
If the Kings had worked their way through the system in a ligit way, they would have had the rest of South Africa's support.
Posted 14:17 21st February 2013
martinmarais78 says...
UBA05, get it? Martin Marais is now Southernkinger testing the hotblooded South African rugby public. ;) Good responses so far!
Posted 09:47 21st February 2013
martinmarais78 says...
UBA05, thanks but we dont need patronising, petty mercy from outside "friends". Everyone has written us of and labeled us as rubbish.
Fine with that, we are the Kings and we will proof our greatness on the field. Keep your patronising comments for your own team!
Only thing you can maybe help me with is telling me where I can watch the games here in Canada?
Posted 09:42 21st February 2013
UBA05 says...
Southernkinger........errrrr..............you do realize we're on the same side dont you?!?!?
You should increase your uptake of fish in your diet, rumour has it that it does wonders for brain development
Posted 07:40 21st February 2013
Southernkinger says...
UBA05 here is a summary:
Forwards: Superb
Backs: Superb
Need more? Go yank a chain!
Posted 14:55 20th February 2013
UBA05 says...
To all:
Boy wouldnt it be fantastic to atleast get 'expert sounding' analysis on the Kings prospects aside from the simplistic 'lambs to the slaughter', 'they'll get hammered' comments we seem to get from everyone based on the fact they are a new team and seem to have no 'big name' players!
Now that they have played a few warmup games and we have a matchday 22 (note to self:check why sanzar isnt using the 23 matchday players adopted for tests) can someone please analyze this team based on scrummaging, lineout prowess, player quality, player combinations etc etc. Im guessing someone with knowledge of the SA domestic players is best to handle this.
For what its worth i hope they can pull an argentina in this years SR comp just to make things interesting, not that shutting up some big mouthed know-it-alls would hurt.
Posted 13:03 20th February 2013
Southernkinger says...
Thanks KingShark for pointing out the 44 of 187 record most people conveniently forgets about.
Jaystarr, Lions winning only 44 of 187 games and you want to keep on dragging them along as a mercy act of Saru? NUTS!
Kings will have a tough time I agree, but they are in now and needs SA behind them. People should stop their childishness about them and get behind a new exiting South African brand.
Anyway in particular the Sharks and Stormers have been buying their way to success for many years in SA rugby, why can't we do the same?
Posted 10:40 20th February 2013
noord_transvaal says...
hope they get punished but of course they wont. Puke Watson's daddy got connections.
Posted 10:38 20th February 2013
hybrid187 says...
PREEST .. its a flawed competition thats in its 3rd season, the 2 seasons before this were flawed too. Who are the unlucky teams to not play the Kings (and hence 5 points thrown away) ? It'll be really annoying for a team finishing missing playoffs by 1 point and they didnt play the Kings. Imagine if 6th is an SA team and they grabbed 10 points off the Kings? Doesnt make sense to me at all. Last year the Brumbies had the dream draw of not playing the Crusaders and Stormers! Yet almost made playoffs after getting pretty much all their points against weak Aussie sides.
Great rugby, but a sadly flawed competition.
Posted 09:35 20th February 2013
Ramage says...
Preest I totally agree with you about the conference system. This too could be the battle for the wooden spoon unless the Reds take over the Mantle from the Farce.
Posted 08:31 20th February 2013
JayStarr says...
They should've called themselves The Lambs... because they're awfully silent at the moment. And, of course, they're going to be slaughtered.
I hope SARU makes an example of them for disobeying their rules? Surely there's not one rule for the Kings and another rule for everyone else ?
And how appropriate that they have the worst referee in South Africa reffing their first game as well.
This game is the Kings best chance of winning this season. If they don't get close to winnning this one, they're going to have a VERY long season. At least all the SA teams have a guaranteed 10 points... Even the Stormers will have at least two 4-try bonus points this year !
@ Southernkinger: Lol
@ KingShark: "Deserved"? What did they do to "deserve" a shot? The Lions "deserved" their inclusion by continuously being better than the rest of the SA teams. They might not have been the best in Super Rugby, but they were sure as hell better than the remaining SA teams... And they actually won the Currie Cup - the Kings couldn't even win the 2nd division. So if any other SA team "deserved" a shot instead of the Lions, it was Griquas... or Boland.
Posted 08:00 20th February 2013
KingShark says...
@Southernkinger, the only thing I am negative about is the way Saru handled things. Kings deserved a shot a long time ago.
@malaprade, keep spewing your vitriol, you can't look more uninformed and stupid if you try.
If the Kings win nothing, will they really be worse than the Lions who only won 44 of 187 matches since 1998? The Lions for whom you have to go all the way back to 2008 to recall their last ten wins?
Since 1998, the Lions conceded on average 3.8 log points to Aus teams per match, 3.8 to NZ teams per match, and 3.4 log points to SA teams per match. The are not worth keeping in the competition as it currently works.
Posted 06:33 20th February 2013
ben7 says...
I hope they do well. I really do. But they wont.
The Force are the ideal team to be playing for their first ever match but i still feel the force will win easily.
Force 40 Kings 17
The Crusaders vs Kings match in Chch will be the biggest win in Super rugby history im predicting. Hope im wrong
Posted 04:39 20th February 2013
badza says...
Ek stem saam met Malaprade ! Badza
Posted 04:35 20th February 2013
kiwilad says...
Southernkinger, I hope yu are patient...
Posted 00:21 20th February 2013
PREEST says...
Sorry Southernkinger, but that is not going to happen...They are going to get absolutely crushed by the force. Also, I find it highly unbalanced that some teams will play the kings twice, basically meaning two games with max points or at least to confirmed easy wins, while other teams will not play them at all. What happened to every team playing every other side once? This conference things is BS as well.
Posted 23:56 19th February 2013
sukkadoits says...
at least they've got an awesome stadium
Posted 21:28 19th February 2013
Sasquatch says...
@Southernkinger: Oh right, all of 3 players of colour representing in the run on 15. Woo Hoo! Go Cheeky! Go transformation! Sorry, make that 4, I forgot about Luke.
Posted 20:02 19th February 2013
leebok says...
Smash the Aussies
Posted 19:59 19th February 2013
rolf says...
"SARU's rule which allows only two foreign players per squad. "
What silly kind of rule is that, pleas?
Tryimg to protect south african rugby players jobs or what?
What the fog does WTO say about that?
Should be dropped. I mean, people play fo every nation they want too....
Posted 19:37 19th February 2013