Bulls coach Frans Ludeke named Victor Matfield to lead the team to play the Stormers at Newlands in Cape Town on Saturday.
Ludeke made four changes and a positional switch to the starting team which lost their last super Rugby outing to the Lions in Johannesburg.
Matfield and Paul Willemse would start at lock and Handre Pollard at flyhalf while Werner Kruger swopped with Marcel van der Merwe in the regular rotation of the front row.
Grant Hattingh vacated the lock position to make way for Matfield and moved to the back of the scrum in a switch that would also see Jacques Engelbrecht run out at flank.
Matfield was rested against the Lions and would lock the scrum with Willemse, who replaced injured captain, Flip van der Merwe, in the number four jersey. Engelbrecht’s move to the side of the scrum was a result of the injury to Jacques du Plessis.
Pollard missed the Lions clash due to his Junior Springbok commitments in New Zealand and returned to start at number 10. Jacques-Louis Potgieter moved to the bench in place of Louis Fouchè.
The Bulls team: Jurgen Visser, Akona Ndungane, JJ Engelbrecht, Jan Serfontein, Bjorn Basson, Handré Pollard, Francois Hougaard, Grant Hattingh, Jacques Engelbrecht, Jono Ross, Victor Matfield (captain), Paul Willemse, Werner Kruger, Callie Visagie, Dean Greyling.
Replacements: Bongi Mbonambi, Marcel van der Merwe, Morne Mellett, Marvin Orie, Roelof Smit, Piet van Zyl, Jacques-Louis Potgieter, William Small-Smith.
Source : Sapa /jlb
