Several South Africans will feature in the Investec Champions Cup quarter-final between Bath and the Northampton Saints at The Rec on Friday night.
Veteran lock Quinn Roux starts for Bath, while JJ van der Mescht is in Northampton’s engine room.
On the bench, Bath boast Springbok titan Thomas du Toit, who turned the last-16 clash against Saracens with a Man of the Match performance as a replacement.
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Du Toit’s introduction not only gave Bath a significant advantage at scrum time, but swung the momentum of the entire match in which Saracens had led 10-0 at half-time. Bath won 31-22.
Bath can also call on loosehead Francois van Wyk and scrumhalf Bernard van der Linde among the reserves.
VAN GRAAN: Saints clash a great occasion
Under South African coach Johann van Graan, Bath have developed into one of Europe’s most formidable outfits, combining physical dominance with attacking flair.
This is the first time in 11 years Bath have progressed to the final eight of the Champions Cup, although they did win the second-tier EPCR Challenge Cup last season.
Northampton came up short in the Champions Cup last season, losing out to Bordeaux Bègles in the final and both teams will be desperate to go all the way in Europe this season.
Friday night’s winner will play the winner of the all-French quarter-final between defending champions Bordeaux and six-time winners Toulouse.
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Free-flowing Northampton beat Bath 41-21 at The Rec earlier in the Premiership season.
“We took quite a bit of learning a few months ago when we played Northampton here,” Van Graan said.
“Northampton are a fantastic team and both teams are currently playing some fantastic rugby. I’m sure it’ll be a fantastic contest on Friday evening.”
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However, Saints coach Phil Dowson was not reading too much into the result from earlier in the season.
“It’s a completely different game and psychological remit, but we’ll try to replicate the things that went well that day,” he said.
“You take elements from it, but equally they’ll be speaking about that, so they’ll be bringing the intensity to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
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BATH – 15 Tom de Glanville; 14 Henry Arundell, 13 Ollie Lawrence, 12 Cameron Redpath, 11 Will Muir; 10 Finn Russell, 9 Ben Spencer (c); 8 Miles Reid, 7 Sam Underhill, 6 Guy Pepper, 5 Charlie Ewels, 4 Quinn Roux, 3 Billy Sela, 2 Tom Dunn, 1 Beno Obano.
Bench: 16 Kepu Tuipulotu, 17 Francois van Wyk, 18 Thomas du Toit, 19 Ross Molony, 20 Ted Hill, 21 Bernard van der Linde, 22 Santiago Carreras, 23 Alfie Barbeary
NORTHAMPTON SAINTS – 15 George Furbank (c), 14 Tommy Freeman, 13 Rory Hutchinson, 12 Fraser Dingwall, 11 Ollie Sleightholme, 10 Fin Smith, 9 Archie McParland, 8 Henry Pollock, 7 Tom Pearson, 6 Josh Kemeny, 5 JJ van der Mescht, 4 Tom Lockett, 3 Cleopas Kundiona, 2 Curtis Langdon, 1 Danilo Fischetti.
Bench: 16 Craig Wright, 17 Emmanuel Iyogun, 18 Elliot Millar-Mills, 19 Ed Prowse, 20 Callum Chick, 21 Alex Mitchell, 22 Tom Litchfield, 23 George Hendy
Photo: Dan Istitene/Getty Images
The post SA stars set for Bath-Saints showdown appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.
Several South Africans will feature in the Investec Champions Cup quarter-final between Bath and the Northampton Saints at The Rec on Friday night.
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