Scarra back for WP,

WESTERN PROVINCE hooker Scarra Ntubeni, out of action since last season with an Achilles tendon tear, will definitely see some action in his team’s opening Currie Cup match against the Free State Cheetahs on Sunday.

This was confirmed by Province coach John Dobson yesterday.

“It’s definitely going to be a very hard game for us. The Stormers went up there a few weeks ago and they had a tough one. So to go up there with largely a SuperSport team is going to be tough,” Dobson said.

“We planned around the Stormers being in the (Super Rugby) semi-final, so what we’re going to do is we’ll look at the guys who played a lot and had a lot of game time, so you can expect more of the guys who didn’t get as much game time. So it will be sort of a hybrid.

“A guy like SP Marais, for example, probably won’t go to Bloem, while a guy like JD Schickerling, who was part of the Stormers squad but didn’t get a lot of game time, probably will. Scarra is definitely in the mix for this weekend, not sure yet if he’ll be starting or if he’ll play off the bench, but he’s definitely in the mix. I’m excited to see him play, he’s been working really hard.”

Dobson believes that their bye in the first week of Currie Cup action “probably avoided” them a defeat.

WP would have gone into the competition without their Stormers personnel, although not many of the regular starters are expected to feature.

“I’m very grateful that we got a bye in the first round. The bye avoided us what could have possibly been a defeat at this stage of the season. But it’s still going to be this weekend. It’s going to be hard to go and play a team that hasn’t lost there since 2015,” Dobson said.

Dobson is hoping that WP can take the “winning momentum” of the Stormers and the SuperSport Rugby Challenge teams into their Currie Cup-opener against the Free State team. WP will travel to Bloemfontein on Friday, and with the Stormers being Africa 1 conference winners and the SuperSport Challenge team having won the competition, Dobson is banking on players from both squads to add their winning mix to the Currie Cup.

“Hopefully the winning momentum that has built up among the Stormers and the SuperSport team can help us a little bit in terms of our belief,” he said.

When asked what he expected from the Cheetahs to bring on Sunday, Dobson said that he was expecting the same kind of energy from them that they displayed against the Stormers three weeks ago.

“We expect them to play just like they did against the Stormers, a good tempo game, punishing us for mistakes,” Dobson said.