Nortje back as Bulls ring the changes

Vodacom Bulls coach Johan Ackermann again rang the changes to his side, as they said goodbye to some Springboks and welcomed back season captain Ruan Nortje to the side for their Vodacom United Rugby Championship match against Glasgow Warriors on Friday night.

Nortje is joined by fellow captain Marcell Coetzee, who missed the tour with a concussion, but joined up with the team in Glasgow. Nortje was rested for the first two weeks of the tour and will join up with the Springboks after the game.

Many of the other changes are rotational with Gerhard Steenekamp moving back into the starting line-up alongside Johan Grobbelaar and Mornay Smith coming in at tighthead after Wilco Louw returned home.

Nortje will partner Cobus Wiese in the second row, while last week’s captain Reinhardt Ludwig, moves to seven to join Coetzee and Jeandre Rudolph in the back row. That means that Nama Xaba and JJ Theron, who started last week, drop down to the bench.

In the backline Embrose Papier returns to the starting line-up, swapping with two try hero Paul de Wet while Stravino Jacobs is on the wing for Canan Moodie, who returned home before reporting for Springbok duty.

Jan-Hendrik Wessels is the other notable absence after apparently being banned by a URC tribunal, which at the time of writing had still not been made public.

The Vodacom Bulls have lost just two of their last seven away games in the URC, but Glasgow Warriors’ only defeat so far this campaign was a narrow loss against Benetton in Round Two.

The Warriors have lost just twice at home in any competition since December 2023, both in the URC against Ospreys in March and against this week’s opponents, in April.

The two sides have met on five previous occasions with the Bulls having the edge by three wins to two. The Vodacom Bulls’ 26-19 win on their most recent visit to Scotstoun in April is the South Africans’ only victory in Scotland.

Vodacom Bulls: Willie le Roux; Sebastian de Klerk, David Kriel, Jan Serfontein, Stravino Jacobs; Keagan Johannes, Embrose Papier; Jeandre Rudolph, Reinhardt Ludwig, Marcell Coetzee, Ruan Nortje (captain), Cobus Wiese, Mornay Smith, Johan Grobbelaar, Gerhard Steenekamp.

Replacements: Juann Else, Etienne Janneke, Francois Klopper, JJ Theron, Nama Xaba, Paul de Wet, Stedman Gans, Kurt-Lee Arendse.