AUDIO: How Bulls Daisies navigate the loss of their Boks

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IN THE SPOTLIGHT: As the Bulls Daisies aim for their third successful Women's Premier Division title, the team has a couple of hurdles to overcome.

The Daisies, who are currently the only professional team in the Women's Premier Division, look set to claim their third title when the season kicks off this Saturday.

The Pretoria-based side faces EP Queens in Round One this Saturday in the Eastern Cape.

For the opening round, the Bulls Daisies will have most of their Springbok Women stars at their disposal.

However, that will change when the national team gathers for camps as the Daisies make up most of the Springbok Women's squad.

Last year, 15 players were involved in the WXV 2 campaign, while last month's camp saw 16 Bulls players in the 38-player Bok training squad.

The team is yet again set to lose a number of high-profile players during the new campaign.

However, Thando Manana, the Blue Bulls Company (BBCo.) Special Projects Manager and High-Performance Women's Rugby Manager, revealed there is a solid plan in place to navigate the absence of the players as the national side prepares for the World Cup.

"People who head up high performance are people who always think out of the box – last year when I lost 12 players for the Olympics and Sevens qualifiers during our competition, we didn't have them the whole year," Manana said, adding  "So that was sort of an eye-opener to say that, I've got to have readily available players, should I lose [regulars].

"In three weeks, I lose Zintle Mpupha, Ayanda Malinga, and Maria Tshiremba for the Sevens Challenger Series in Cape Town – have we made plans for that? Yes, we have.

"What are those plans? We'll just call up the Emerging Daisies players that we know will fill up those gaps, even if we miss that much experience from those types of players.

"So, I think that's the base we have to look at in terms of the core squad, where we can lose on any given day. In two week's time, the Springbok Women will have a camp at Loftus and we are playing Boland in the same week.

"They will come on a Wednesday night, train one session and then we go to Boland, so it's a disrupted week already, and we have to plan and trust our other players [to step up]."

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Manana said despite the disruptions, the team is focused on securing a home final.

"We are playing a single round. We've got new players, we have cut down, released some of the players and have to replace 6 or 7 players.

"Shanique Alexander is new, she played for the EP Queens and will make her Bulls Daisies debut against them this weekend.

"Last year we had Emerging Daisies and we predominately played with 50 percent club players infused with professionals and that just showed us we keep losing these players to the national team and intervals we didn't plan, but we adapt and move on.

"We want to build a winning culture whether we have certain players or up-and-coming players.

"It is not going to be easy. We look forward to playing Boalnd away, Western Province next week and the Sharks are coming for us.

"We playing for a home final and the rest will take care of itself."

*Photo credit: Bulls Daisies