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Kings and Stormers ready to bolster squads with former South Africa U20 stars

South Africa's Junior Sipato Pokomela wins a line out at the AJ Bell Stadium. (Photo by Lynne Cameron/Getty Images)

The Kings have been making waves since they were taken over by The Greatest Rugby Company in the Whole Wide World, with the firm acquiring a 74% share in the team back in March.

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The Guinness PRO14 club are the first South African side to be independently owned in the modern era and it didn’t take long for the rumour mill to whir into action, with former All Black Julian Savea one of the first names linked with the team. That move didn’t come to be, although with a partnership formed between the Kings and Toulon, not to mention well-publicised issues between Savea and Toulon owner Mourad Boudjellal, the link was understandable.

The Kings are busy remodelling their squad for the 2019/20 season, though, and recently announced contracts extensions for core members of their senior squad, including Yaw Penxe, CJ Velleman and S’bura Sithole, as well as the signing of Irish lock Jerry Sexton.

Sexton could soon be followed by two further additions to the pack at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, with Cheetahs pair Junior Pokomela and Sintu Manjezi both being lined up, per HeraldLIVE.

Pokomela, 22, and Manjezi, 24, both grew up in or around the Port Elizabeth area, before playing their youth rugby with the Eastern Province Kings. Pokomela left for the Cheetahs in 2017, a year after impressing for the South African U20 side at the Junior World Championship, whilst Manjezi joined him in Bloemfontein a year later in 2018.

With the Kings now financially better able to retain talent, they seem keen to bring back these two homegrown products and bolster a back row unit that already includes Velleman and Andisa Ntsila.

Pokomela and Manjezi are not the only EP Kings academy graduates that could be on the move this summer, either, with RugbyPass sources confirming that current Sharks centre Jeremy Ward is in the sights of the Stormers.

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Ward, 23, is a former South Africa U20 captain and starred alongside Pokomela at the 2016 edition of the tournament. He made the move to the Sharks in 2017 but has struggled to breakthrough into the first team, in part due to the form of Lukhanyo Am.

If Ward were to move to the Stormers for the 2020 Super Rugby season, he would find himself in a competition with JJ Engelbrecht to partner Damian de Allende in head coach Robbie Fleck’s midfield.

With the Sharks set to lose Coenie Oosthuizen, Akker van der Merwe and Robert du Preez to Sale Sharks at the end of this season, as well as possibly Ward to the Stormers, the Durban-based Sharks could find themselves in the market for a number of reinforcements in the coming months.

Watch: The controversial Nations Championship is back on the agenda

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AM 40 minutes ago
'Freelancer' Izaia Perese shows the need for true inclusivity in Australian rugby

That's Cron's job though. Australia has had one of the most penalised scrums in international rugby for a long time. Just look at the scrum win loss percentage and scrum penalties. That is your evidence. AA has been the starter during that period. Pretty simple analysis. That Australia has had a poor scrum for a long time is hardly news. If bell and thor are not on the field they are woeful. So you are just plain wrong. They have very little time for the lions so doing the same old things that dont work is not going to get them there.


Ainsley is better than our next best tighthead options and has been playing well at scrum time for Lyon in the most competitive comp in the world. Superstar player? No. But better than the next best options. So that is a good enough guide. The scrummaging in the Prem is pretty good too so there is Sio's proof. Same analysis for him. Certainly better in both cases than Super, where the brumbies had the worst win loss and scrum pen in Super. Who plays there? Ohh yes... And the level of scrummaging in Super is well below the URC, prem and France with the SA teams out.


Nongorr is truly woeful. He's 130kg and gets shoved about. That just should not be happening at that weight for a specialist prop who has always played rugby cf pone with leauge. He has had enough time to develop at 23. You'd be better off with Pone who is at least good around the field for the moment and sending Nongorr on exchange to France or England to see if they can improve him with better coaching as happened with Skelton and Meafou. He isn't going to develop in time in super if he has it at all.


Latu is a better scrummaging hooker than BPA and Nasser. and he's the best aussie player over the ball at ruck time. McReight's super jackling percentage hasnt converted to international level but latu consistently does it at heniken level, which is similar to test level in the big games. With good coaching at La Rochelle he's much improved though still has the odd shocker. He should start the November games.

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