Herbst missed out on last week’s match against Western Province due to the birth of this child. Van Staden in his turn has been in the Springbok camp for the Rugby Championship Test against the Wallabies at Ellis Parl.

Van Staden has been released by the national side and slots back into the Bulls team and will play off the bench.

The lock, Andries Ferreira, will start against this former province. Other Cheetahs have been named in the Bulls side are the wingers Cornal Hendriks and Rosco Specman.

The Bulls also have the added bonus of having the former Cheetahs scrum coach, Daan Human, as part of their technical staff, and they will surely target the team from Bloemfontein in the set-piece.

The former Free State captain, and current Bulls coach, Pote Human, warns that they cannot underestimate the Cheetahs.

“We need to be at our best.

“The Free State Cheetahs will be well-rested and have some really good players available.

“They will be very keen to get their season started. We have to start well, keep playing well and finish well in this one.

“We created some chances last week, but with some of our phases not functioning as it should have, we never really managed to force dominance. That needs to change this weekend.”

Franco Smith will name his side for the clash on Thursday morning.

Friday evening’s game in Pretoria kicks off at 19:15.

Blue Bulls -15 Divan Rossouw, 14 Cornal Hendricks, 13 Johnny Kotze, 12 Burger Odendaal (captain), 11 Rosko Specman, 10 Manie Libbok, 9 Embrose Papier, 8 Tim Agaba, 7 Roelof Smit, 6 Ruan Steenkamp, 5 Andries Ferreira, 4 Ruan Nortje, 3 Wiehahn Herbst, 2 Jaco Visagie, 1 Simphiwe Matanzima.

Replacements - 16 Johan Grobbelaar, 17 Dayan van der Westhuizen, 18 Conraad van Vuuren, 19 Jean Droste, 20 Marco van Staden, 21 Ivan van Zyl, 22 Marnitz Boshoff, 23 Dylan Sage.

@MorganPiek OFM Sport