Dickson to shuffle United cards
Club rugby
Trustco United head coach Robbie Dickson had some injury concerns to take into account yesterday as he was finalising his first-team selection for Saturday’s crunch away match against FNB Rehoboth.The Philistines, who are the title holder in the Namibia Rugby Union’s premier league, face a do-or-die match as they attempt to complete a late comeback into a top-four finish and squeeze into the semi-finals.
Their opponents Rehoboth will not repeat the previous two years’ semi-final appearance, with only this match left to complete their somewhat disappointing season. Jood Opperman’s Red Bulls are in seventh position with 35 log points from 14 matches (six wins). Rehoboth has blown hot and cold this season, despite a decent presence of potential gamebreakers.
United (fifth, on 37 points from 14 matches) has one match in hand against FNB Reho Falcon a week later.
Ahead of them are Grootfontein (fourth, on 44 from 15 matches), whose last league match will at at home against FNB Wanderers (second, 69) on Saturday.
Dickson says: “Jahno du Plessis (scrum-half) will be out of contention for the rest of the season due to personal reasons. Edgar Beuthin (wing) is out with a hamstring injury and Callie Swannepoel is out with a MCL knee injury. Jano Otto (loosehead prop) is 50/50 with an ankle concern.
“At scrumhalf, Hanreco van Zyl (from fly-half or fullback) will take over from Jahno, while we are moving Ricardo Swartz back to the 10 jersey. At full-back, we have Timothy van Wyk returning from a previous ankle injury.
“Due to our list of injuries, Johan Brockman will also be moving back to his normal prop position after we had used him at lock in recent matches.”
The NTV production team will bring the live broadcast of Rehoboth vs United on our DStv and GOtv channel, which could also be followed on https://oneuptwo.com/ntv (kick-off at 15:45).
Saturday’s other matches are at Walvis Bay, with FNB Kudus’s third place reasonably safe when they face FNB Western Suburbs, and at Unam Stadium, where FNB Reho Falcon (fifth, 35 points) will need something like a miracle to upset the momentum of log leaders FNB Unam (71 points) and boost their slim chance of fighting into the top-four.