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Human chooses experience in Tuks camp

Experienced coach Pote Human knows he needs to get the trophy back to Pretoria and will head into this ear's competition with no first-year students, opting to place his trust in those who have already had a taste of the competition.Human chooses experience in Tuks camp

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"We last won it in 2013 and there is real pressure on us, we put a lot of work in the off-season. We lost badly in the semifinal against Maties last year, so there is a real expectation for us to do something special this time around.

"All our first-year students will be playing in the Young Guns competition but we have managed to add some 2016 Bulls Under-21 and U-19 players – who are still studying – for their first taste of this competition.

"Most of the [2016] forwards have been retained and we have acquired a few new youngsters in the backline. I am very excited about them as they have a great energy among them.

"I think we can do well. I am really excited but I don't want to be over confident. I may be excited but I am very worried about Monday. It's going to be a test but that is why we are in the competition, to play the likes of Maties, Pukke and UJ," Human told rugby365.com.

Tuks have a tricky start to the competition when they host last year's finalists, Maties – a side that Human believes are the outright favourites to lift the trophy.

Human chooses experience in Tuks camp"Pre-season went well. We played two warm-up games against Shimlas and UJ and I am really happy with where we are now but we know it's going to be a big tussle against Maties – I believe they must be the favourites for this year's competition.

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"We placed ourselves under pressure by losing our first three games last year and we had to win the next four with bonus points. After we achieved that, I feel like the players thought that reaching the semis was good enough. We learned from that by not wanting to settle for just the semis, we want to win it this year.

"If we look at last season, we led Shimlas 46-15 [Round Two] and ended up losing that encounter. Stuff like that can't happen again and when we went down to Maties [Round Three], we were in the game until the last few minutes and then threw the game away.

"There are no easy games in this competition, so we have to play for the full 80 minutes," he added.

Tuks will once again be captained by flank Ruan Steenkamp and gets their campaign underway against Maties at Loftus Versfeld on January 30 with kick-off scheduled at 18.30 local time.

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By Tauriq Ebrahim

@Tauriq365

@rugby365com

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