Month: August 2026

Rassie made only one injury enforced change to the team for the third test. Cheslin Kolbe moves to full back while Kurt-Lee Arendse comes back into the team at wing.

This is in effect another must win game for the Boks as they would not want to lose the SA leg of the tour to the All Blacks. The Springboks showed major improvement from the first game. The maul worked really well, they did manage to get points from their 22 visits, Eben and co disrupted their lineout a number of times, the Boks won the high ball battle (Ethan Hooker was outstanding) and the Bok defense mostly ensured that the All Blacks did not have their own way on attack.

Cheslin Kolbe and Grant Williams (would probably have been dropped anyway) are out with injury – so Ethan Hooker and Cobus Reinach starts. SFM (also had a poor match overall) is dropped to the bench and Pollard starts the crunch match for the Boks.

Deon Fourie is on the bench as hooker – a selection that will raise eyebrows but he did trouble the All Blacks in their game against the Stormers. Thomas du Toit and Lood de Jager will add some scrumming power and old heads later in the game.

Rassie has picked a very strong starting team for the All Blacks. The strongest available scrumming front row of Louw, Marx and Nche has been picked – question is will the refs reward the Bok scrum? Andre Esterhuizen has been picked in the hybrid bench role with SFM preferred ahead of Libbok.

Rassie has kept 12 players back in SA to train with Tony Brown. He is using the test in Argentina to give players returning from injury a game before the All Black games start. Both Lood de Jager and Eben Etzebeth have copped long bans plus injury layoffs – so expect at least one to play no more than 50 minutes. Andre Esterhuizen, Ethan Hooker, Morne van den Berg, Sacha FM and Siya Kolisi all return from injury either having little game time or no Bok games this season.