{"id":743088,"date":"2026-06-17T21:29:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T21:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/743088\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T21:29:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T21:29:18","slug":"bulls-team-springboks-aplenty-for-urc-final-v-leinster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/743088\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulls team: Springboks aplenty for URC final v Leinster"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Barbarians<\/a><\/p>\n

Bulls head coach Johan Ackermann has kept the faith by naming an unchanged matchday squad for Friday\u2019s United Rugby Championship (URC) final against Leinster at Croke Park in Dublin.<\/p>\n

Ackermann has rewarded the players who were on duty in the Pretoria-based outfit\u2019s thrilling 22-21 comeback triumph against Glasgow Warriors at Murrayfield a fortnight ago.<\/p>\n

There are 16 Springboks in the matchday squad, of which 11 have been included in the starting line-up with five named amongst the replacements, while Marcell Coetzee captains the team from the openside flank.<\/p>\n

Bulls name unchanged team for URC final<\/p>\n

Coetzee is joined in the back-row by Cameron Hanekom, who starts at number eight, and Elrigh Louw, who starts on the blindside flank.<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s encounter will be a momentous occasion for Boks lock Ruan Nortje as he will make his final appearance for the Bulls<\/a> in this match before joining an unnamed Japanese club.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old has spent his entire senior career with the Bulls, becoming a stalwart at the club after making his debut in 2018.<\/p>\n

Springboks team: Five takeaways as focus firmly on Rassie Erasmus\u2019 \u2018untested\u2019 playmaker while \u2018new-look\u2019 Bomb Squad set to explode<\/a><\/p>\n

Nortje will pack down in the second-row alongside Ruan Vermaak, while the pack is completed by Johan Grobbelaar, who continues at hooker. Francois Klopper and Gerhard Steenekamp are the starting props.<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

In the backline, experienced playmaker Handre Pollard will start at fly-half and forms a halfback combination with South African URC Player of the Season Embrose Papier while Harold Vorster and Canan Moodie are the two centres.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, veteran full-back Willie le Roux forms part of an exciting back three alongside Kurt-Lee Arendse and Stravino Jacobs, who are the starting wingers.<\/p>\n

Leinster team: Ireland pair overcome injury concerns as James Lowe and Rieko Ioane set to make final bow<\/a><\/p>\n

Ackermann has, once again, opted for six two split on his bench with Marco van Staden, Jan Hendrik Wessels, Wilco Louw, Cobus Wiese, Jeandre Rudolph and Nizaam Carr named as the forward replacements with Zak Burger and Stedman Gans offering backline cover.<\/p>\n

The men from Pretoria and Leinster<\/a> are set for a repeat of last year\u2019s final, which the Irish province won 32-7.<\/p>\n

Leinster booked their spot in this year\u2019s final after securing a hard-fought 20-11 triumph over the Stormers in their semi-final at the Aviva Stadium.<\/p>\n

Bulls team for URC final against Leinster<\/p>\n

Bulls: 15 Willie le Roux, 14 Kurt-Lee Arendse, 13 Canan Moodie, 12 Harold Vorster, 11 Stravino Jacobs, 10 Handre Pollard, 9 Embrose Papier, 8 Cameron Hanekom, 7 Elrigh Louw, 6 Marcell Coetzee (c), 5 Ruan Nortje, 4 Ruan Vermaak, 3 Francois Klopper, 2 Johan Grobbelaar, 1 Gerhard Steenekamp
Replacements: 16 Marco van Staden, 17 Jan Hendrik Wessels, 18 Wilco Louw, 19 Cobus Wiese, 20 Jeandre Rudolph, 21 Zak Burger, 22 Stedman Gans, 23 Nizaam Carr<\/p>\n

Date: Friday, June 19
Venue: Croke Park (Dublin)
Kick-off: 19:30 (local Dublin), 19:30 (UK), 20:30 (France), 20:30 (South Africa), 04:30 (20 June, AEST), 06:30 (20 June, New Zealand), 15:30 (Argentina), 03:30 (20 June, JST), 14:30 (EDT)
Referee: Andrea Piardi (FIR)
Assistant referees: Adam Jones (WRU), Ben Breakspear (WRU)
TMO: Matteo Liperini (FIR)
Live on: Premier Sports, SuperSport, Flo Rugby & URC.tv<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Bulls v Leinster: Springboks legend outlines blueprint to \u2018strangle those Irish\u2019 and names \u2018a guy who can be really important this week\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bulls head coach Johan Ackermann has kept the faith by naming an unchanged matchday squad for Friday\u2019s United…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":743089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,36177,818,6265,44,760,85,134441],"class_list":["post-743088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bulls","tag-home-page","tag-leinster","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-united-rugby-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=743088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/743089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}