Quan Horn, Ruan Venter return for Lions against Cardiff

Springboks Quan Horn and Ruan Venter return from injury for the Lions important United Rugby Championship (URC) match against Cardiff in Wales on Friday night (kick-off 9:35pm).

Horn has been out since suffering a toe injury in their URC match against the Bulls at Loftus in February, while Venter picked up a concussion in the Lions first match against the Sharks at Ellis Park earlier this month and missed out on the second game in Durban.

Both lineup in the starting XV, while centre Henco van Wyk also makes his return from an injury sustained against the Bulls, but will come off the bench at some point in the game.

In the absence of Horn and Venter, Tapiwa Mafura and Sibabalo Qoma have performed admirably, but Mafura unfortunately drops out of the match 23, while Qoma will try to make his presence felt off the bench.

The only other changes to the Lions starting XV from their most recent match against the Sharks sees flank JC Pretorius return after a niggle picked up in training ruled him out of the last game, replacing Jarod Cairns who drops to the bench, and Nico Steyn comes in at scrumhalf for Morne van den Berg who misses the tour with a finger injury.

Bench impact

On the bench SJ Kotze and RF Schoeman come into the match 23 to provide cover at prop, while 21-year-old scrumhalf Layton Horn is in line to make his international debut for the Lions.

Speaking ahead of the match, Lions assistant coach Barend Pieterse said that they were excited by the return of their star players, while they were also hoping to get their tour off to the best possible start, especially with how tight the race for the URC top eight is.

“The return of those players gives the squad confidence. All of them have been good for us during the season but in saying that, the players who filled in for them while they were injured did very well. It says a lot about our depth and how lucky we are to have that,” said Pieterse.

“We really want to start this tour well. The aim is to get as many points as possible. As it stands the log is very close. Everything is in our hands at the moment.”

 Lions starting XV

Quan Horn, Richard Kriel, Manuel Rass, Marius Louw, Edwill van der Merwe, Gianni Lombard, Nico Steyn, Francke Horn, Ruan Venter, JC Pretorius, Darrien Landsberg, Ruben Schoeman, Asenathi Ntlabakanye, PJ Botha, Juan Schoeman

Bench: Franco Marais, SJ Kotze, RF Schoeman, Ruan Delport, Sibabalo Qoma, Layton Horn, Jarod Cairns, Henco van Wyk