Head Coach Deon Davids says preparations for the Southern Kings return to Vodacom Super Rugby have stepped up a gear as the Kings prepare for their first contact session against the NMMU Madibaz during a closed training session on Friday afternoon.
“I’m quite happy with the way that the boys are buying into the vision that we have in terms of our team structures,” said Davids.
“They have been training hard on the field and they have also been doing some hard work conditioning wise,” he said
Davids said there had been some good progression in terms of the players’ fitness results.
“I am happy in terms of their work ethic and their professionalism and the atmosphere that has been created here that the guys are working under,” he said.
Davids said the session against the Madibaz was more about simulating contact as both teams prepared for their respective competitions, but said they would be making use of the opportunity to focus on aspects of the Kings defence and attack.
“The practice match against the Madibaz will primarily be to simulate more match contact situations. For us that’s going to be important and obviously also to assist the Madibaz in their preparations also,” he said.
“Our outcomes for the session will be, from a defensive point of view, to look at our defensive structure and our attitude in defence and also our ability to play from turnovers. That will be a massive focus from our side.”
“Also from an attacking point of view, we want to see how we can gain momentum from our set pieces and how we keep continuity. To gain continuity and keep continuity for set piece of time,” he said.
Davids said while he would like to rotate all the players there were some minor injury concerns that ruled some players out of the game.
“I would like everyone to have a go, obviously we still sitting with some injuries, but the guys who won’t be involved in this training session, will be involved in the week after that.”
“The biggest concern was the injury of Monde Hadebe who has left us, we still have Aidon Davis, who is well within his rehab progamme, coming back. Kevin Luiters, who has a calf strain, will be back in a week or two. Louis Fouche had an operation on his knee and will still take some time to come back.
“Hopefully this week Shane Gates will be returning, he won’t participate this week in the contact session, but he will be up and running next week,” said Davids.
Alan Straton
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