Nell honoured to lead Southern Kings against the Sharks

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

Southern Kings lock Darron Nell says its a massive honour and privilege to be handed the captains armband for Saturday’s Vodacom Super Rugby clash with the Sharks at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth. Kick off is at 19h10.
Nell leads the team for Luke Watson who will play off the bench as he’s not yet fully recovered from the heavy knock he took to the throat in the historic 22-10 win over the Western Force.
Jacques Engelbrecht starts at 8th man and David Bullbring drops to the bench for Nell in the only other changes to the starting 15.
Nell says this will be very different to the last time he captained the Kings against the Sharks, which was in a friendly last year.
Steven Sykes is relishing the opportunity of packing down alongside Nell at lock against his former Sharks team mates and feels the other teams in the competition will now be a lot more watchful of the Kings after their heroics against the Force.
Inside centre and vice captain Andries Strauss says against a team like the Sharks, the Kings will have to up their intensity even more than they did against the Force. The foreign signings, scrumhalf Nicolas Vergallo and utility back Hadleigh Parkes have both been named on the bench.
The match 22 is:
15 SP Marais; 11 Marcello Sampson; 13 Ronnie Cooke; 12 Andries Strauss (vice cpt); 14 Sergeal Petersen; 10 Demetri Catrakillis; 9 Shaun Venter.
1 Schalk Ferreira; 2 Bandise Maku; 3 Kevin Buys; 6 Cornell du Preez; 4 Darron Nell (cpt); 5 Steven Sykes; 7 Wimpie van der Walt; 8 Jacques Engelbrecht.
Replacements: 16 Edgar Marutulle; 17 Jaco Engels; 18 David Bullbring; 19 Luke Watson; 20 Nicolas Vergallo; 21 George Whitehead; 22 Hadleigh Parkes

photo: Steven Sykes, Andries Strauss and Darron Nell