Springboks name team for first All Blacks test

RUGBY NEWS - Centre Damian de Allende will become the 10th player in history to earn 100 test caps for South Africa when the Springboks meet the All Blacks in the opening game of the inaugural Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry in Johannesburg on Saturday, reports The Citizen.

The teams will clash in the first of four tests at Ellis Park at 17:10.

Flank Pieter-Steph du Toit will captain the side in the absence of the injured Siya Kolisi.

Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu has also won the race to be the team’s flyhalf, with Manie Libbok on the bench. Handre Pollard misses out on the matchday-23.

However, Ox Nche, who got hurt in the Boks’ first match of the season, has recovered and will take his place in the starting team.

Young Paul de Villiers, who has played just two tests, will take Kolisi’s place on the side of the scrum.

There is also place in the matchday squad for Cobus Wiese, who joins his brother Jasper, the No 8, on the bench, along with the likes of Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Zach Porthen and Andre Esterhuizen.

“The All Blacks are a quality team, and we selected combinations we think would be best suited for the challenge this weekend,” said Erasmus.

“The squad is well balanced with players who remained in South Africa to train for this series and some of the players who featured against Argentina.

“It certainly helped to have some players return from injury last week and to get back into top-flight test rugby, while some of the others who had a heavy workload in the Nations Championship had sufficient time to recover from the physical toll on them.

“The whole group has now been together for over a week, and we are all aligned regarding the way we want to play this weekend.”

Commenting on the omission of Kolisi, Erasmus said: “Siya trained well with us this week, and although we could have selected him for this clash, we thought it would be best to select Paul (de Villiers) for this weekend’s game.

“We are playing four tests against the All Blacks and Paul has been playing well, so we are excited to give him a chance this weekend in what will be his first test match against New Zealand, while taking a precautionary approach to Siya’s return.

“We have a solid group of players, and each one of them deserves their places in the squad, so we will approach team selection week by week.”