Davids still puzzling over side

SOUTHERN Kings head coach Deon Davids is still scratching his head over his Super Rugby starting line-up to face the Jaguares in under two weeks’ time.

Davids said he thought he would have had more clarity after the friendlies against the Border Bulldogs and SWD Eagles, but that he needs more time to make key decisions.

“Our focus this week will be to establish our starting team,” said Davids.

“We have an idea of what we want and there were one or two players who stuck their hands up in the friendlies and one or two who did not take their chances.

“I thought Mazakole Mapimpi did well and he was good with ball in hand. There were one or two things without the ball that he can improve on. I liked the energy that a guy like Malcolm Jaer brought to the game when he came on. He looked good.

“Scrumhalf Louis Schreuder also did well, but I do not want to single out players. I think towards the end prop Schalk van der Merwe also brought a lot of energy.

“The idea was to give the guys that played against the Eagles as much game time as possible so that we can get a balance with game time and build from that.

“So we will have to see how it goes in the training sessions so we can make 100% certain of our choices. I thought there were areas where I would have had more clarity, but there are two areas that I need to sort out,” said Davids.

“This week we will address that stuff and hopefully have one more contact session against the Varsity Cup side the Madibaz.”

After the 42-24 win over the Eagles on Saturday, Davids said his team had battled to maintain continuity and it was an area that needed to be worked on.

Davids says hard work lies ahead of the Kings before they tackle the Jagueres in their opening Super Rugby match in Port Elizabeth on February really 25.

Loose-forward Chris Cloete was withdrawn from the Kings team after taking a knock to the head in training on Thursday.

“But he will be fine and there was nothing wrong with him apart from that knock,” said Davids.

“We would have played him for at least one half and we think he is fit enough to do that.

“Now we will weigh up the situation and see where we stand with our injuries. Later we will see whether Chris will be in the starting line-up or start from the bench in our first Super Rugby match,” said Davids.

“We are going to work hard until Thursday and then give the guys off because it will be their last weekend off before Super Rugby starts.”

Over the past seven days four Kings players sustained concussions.

Irne Herbst, Neil Maritz and Cloete sustained concussions during training, while flyhalf Pieter-Steyn de Wet sustained a concussion during the SWD Eagles fixture.

They are all going through the return-to-play protocol this week.