Elephants field new-look team after WP stampede
AFTER a tough opening game in the SuperSport Rugby Challenge tournament against champions Western Province, EP Elephants coach Ryan Felix hopes life will start getting a bit easier tomorrow.
Last week, EP’s weaknesses were ruthlessly exposed by WP, who ran in nine tries in their emphatic 59-12 win at the Wolfson Stadium in Kwazakhele.
Tomorrow they will be up against an SWD Eagles side who failed to win any of their eight games last season and had a bye last weekend.
The game kicks off at 12.15pm and is a curtain-raiser to the Southern Kings versus Cheetahs PRO14 clash at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.
“The other teams will look at what we did in our opening game and will try to apply the same pressure on us,” Felix said.
“We faced a WP team of seasoned campaigners and some of them have played at the highest level.
“We are not going to slack down and we will try to improve against the Eagles.
“One thing about the WP game was that our scrumming was solid and I am happy about that.
“The first problem we had was that we lacked some game time against WP,” Felix said
“The second thing was our defensive effort was bad and we did not have good line speed to put Western Province under pressure.
“Thirdly, WP are a good championship-winning team who are well coached. They have been together for two or three years and were unbeaten last year.
Felix said his team were working hard to register a first win of the campaign.
“I told the players the defeat against Western Province was not the end of the world and it was our first game together as group.
“There are positives we can take out of the game.
“In defence the structure is there, but we lacked line speed. We were sitting and waiting for the opposition to attack us.”
Felix said he would field a new-look team against the Eagles, led by Siya Mdaka.
“I hope things get a bit easier this week because the Eagles did not play last week and we have a game under the belt.
“I just hope the boys pitch up and are ready for this game. I told them that rugby is a funny sport. Today you can be down and tomorrow you are up there again.
Eagles coach Rynhardt van As has high hopes for the season.
“It’s always a great challenge for any coach to be able to work with a new bunch of players,” he said. “We’ve prepared well, we’ve a good squad with a lot of good youngsters.
“Everything’s going according to plan and we’re just waiting to see if we can get a good start to the competition. We’re really confident and positive.”