The announcement had been pushed back to Thursday to assess the captain’s condition. The verdict is in, and it is not about the injury.
The announcement had been pushed back to Thursday, breaking the habit of a Rassie Erasmus who names his twenty-three early in the week, officially to assess Siya Kolisi’s recovery. The verdict is in, and it is not only about the injury.
“We could have picked him”
Taken off after twenty-four minutes in the narrow win over Argentina (17-10), his first match after several months out, Kolisi was reported to be a doubt with a hamstring problem. Erasmus cleared up the ambiguity: the captain was available, but the staff chose not to play him. A precautionary decision at the start of a four-Test series spread over three weeks.
Pieter-Steph du Toit will therefore wear the armband. Up front, Ox Nche, Malcolm Marx and Wilco Louw make up the front row, the last of those being the only real surprise in the selection. Eben Etzebeth and Ruan Nortje pair up at lock, and Paul de Villiers joins du Toit in the back row.
Behind the scrum, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu was preferred at fly-half despite having played just one match since returning from injury, with Handre Pollard and Manie Libbok both available.
De Allende, the tenth Springbok centurion
The centre will reach one hundred caps on Saturday. Not many have done it in the green and gold: our records list nine players on one hundred caps or more before him.
| Player | Caps | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Eben Etzebeth | 142 | since 2011 |
| Victor Matfield | 127 | 2000-2015 |
| Bryan Habana | 124 | 2004-2016 |
| Tendai Mtawarira | 117 | 2007-2019 |
| John Smit | 111 | 1999-2011 |
| Jean de Villiers | 109 | 2002-2015 |
| Siya Kolisi | 104 | since 2012 |
| Percy Montgomery | 102 | 1996-2008 |
| Willie le Roux | 101 | since 2012 |
De Allende will be only the second centre in Springbok history to pass the mark, after Jean de Villiers. At 34, he has scored twelve Test tries since his debut in 2014.
A Test built up through press statements
The week was taken up by more than rugby. Erasmus turned down the pre-match meeting with the officials, sent his adviser Jaco Peyper to a press conference to explain the thirty-second rule, and his assistant Felix Jones publicly accused the All Blacks of entering rucks with the shoulder tucked and lifting legs in the maul. Dave Rennie responded by talking of isolated incidents and refusing, as he put it, to play that game.
Kick-off is on Saturday at 17:10 at Ellis Park.
Comments