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Here we are line-ups for Friday's match:
Emirates Western Force Sharks
1. Gareth Hardy Beast Mtawarira
2. Tai McIsaac Bismark Du Plessis
3. AJ Whalley BJ Botha
4. David Pusey Johan Ackermann
5. Nathan Sharpe (c) Johan Muller
6. Scott Fava Jacques Botes
7. David Pocock AJ Venter
8. Richard Brown Ryan Kankowski
9. Matt Henjak Ruan Pienaar
10. Matt Giteau (vc) Michalak/Steyn
11. Drew Mitchell JP Pietersen
12. Scott Staniforth Bradley Barritt
13. Ryan Cross Waylon Murray
14. Nick Cummins Henno Mentz
15. Cameron Shepherd Steyn/Terblanche
Reserves
16. Luke Holmes Craig Burden
17. Troy Takiari Kees Lensing
18. Sitaleki Timani Jannie Du Plessis
19. Matt Hodgson Jean Deysel/Albert van den Burg
20. James Stannard Rory Kockott
21. Scott Daruda Adrian Jacobs
22. Josh Tatupu Terblanche/Someone else
Interesting that Muir is using a bench front row of 2 props and a hooker. Must be keen to use the scrums as an attacking weapon. On paper the teams look pretty evenly matched. Both teams have very solid backlines and I'd say our back-rows are about equal. I'd say this one will be won in the battle of the tight fives. I think the Sharks have the technique but not the distance (thus the front row reserves). I'd also say ill discipline from players like Kankowski (who is a walking yellow card) will hopefully mean more penalties and less scrums giving us a bit of an advantage. Its interesting that this is almost exactly the same side we had against them last year. I am pegging us for a win of less than 6 points.