Three-month lay-off for WP prop

Western Province have been forced into making a late change on their replacements bench for Saturday's Currie Cup clash against the Sharks at Newlands.

Prop JC Kritzinger picked up an ankle injury at training earlier this week, which is more serious than initially suspected and his place, on the bench, will be filled by Yaya Hartzenberg.

It means that WP will go into the match with a more traditional-looking bench - with two front row replacements in Siyabonga Ntubeni and Brok Harris, youngster Wilhelm van der Sluys covering lock and Hartzenberg providing loose forward cover.

Kritzinger will be out for 12 weeks, which is a blow to WP's front-row resources ahead of the 2012 Currie Cup season.

But it's also a big setback on a personal level for Kritzinger, who has battled back from two serious knee injuries in the last three seasons - which have limited his appearances, for the Stormers and WP, to just 46 matches across all competitions between 2008 and 2011.

Western Province - revised: 15 Joe Pietersen, 14 Gerhard van den Heever, 13 JP du Plessis, 12 Marcel Brache, 11 Gio Aplon, 10 Burton Francis, 9 Dewaldt Duvenage, 8 Jebb Sinclair, 7 Tyrone Holmes, 6 Deon Fourie (captain), 5 De Kock Steenkamp, 4 Don Armand, 3 Frans Malherbe, 2 Tiaan Liebenberg, 1 Deon Carstens.

Replacements: 16 Siyabonga Ntubeni, 17 Brok Harris, 18 Wilhelm van der Sluys, 19 Yaya Hartzenberg, 20 Louis Schreuder, 21 Gary van Aswegen, 22 Damian de Allende.

Date: Saturday, August 11

Venue: Newlands, Cape Town

Kick-off: 19.10 (17.10 GMT)

Referee: Lourens van der Merwe

Assistant referees: Jason Jaftha, Marc van Zyl

TMO: JC Fortuin