FYI Benji to start.... ============= Benji Marshall will make his first start for the Blues when they take on the Lions at Ellis Park on Sunday morning (kick-off 2am NZT). The star rugby league convert will line up at fullback in a Blues side featuring five changes to the one that lost to the Bulls last week. “It’s exciting getting my first start,” Marshall said. “I’ve been looking forward to getting another taste since the first twenty minutes I got against the Highlanders so I’ve just had to have a bit of patience, bide my time a bit and the time has come so I’m looking forward to the challenge.” Marshall conceded it had been a challenging few weeks after not coming off the bench against the Crusaders and being left out of the match day 23 last week. “It’s been a tough couple of weeks patience-wise. It’s a bit of the other side of the coin for me, I’m used to being in a starting line-up in league and then coming back and having to be a bit more patient, not getting on against the Crusaders and then not being in the team the week after so to get the opportunity to start, you’ve just got to take your opportunities and this is my chance.” Blues head coach Sir John Kirwan said he’d been impressed with the way Marshall had been training at fullback. “We’re keeping with the theme of really trying to create some internal competition and although that’s sometimes difficult to do when you haven’t had a win we believe in what we’re doing,” Kirwan said. “We believe that Benji deserves a start at fullback, he’s jumping out of his skin, he’s ready to go, he’s spent the last couple of weeks really refining that role so we’ll put him in there.” Charles Piutau moves from fullback to wing to accommodate the injection of Marshall as youngster Tevita Li drops out of the side. After adding plenty of spark and scoring a try on debut last week, Pita Ahki is rewarded with a start at second five-eighths in place of Jackson Willison who moves to the bench, while Chris Noakes replaces Simon Hickey at first five-eighths.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 03:28:31 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015