Bench overhaul for Cape Town

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.

All the 50-50 refereeing calls went against the Boks (Eben called off-side but Holland not, Jacobsen allowed to interfere with Reinach at a ruck in our 22, etc). However the Boks were very poor on attack – starting with slow and poor passing from Williams, indecision from SFM, passes hitting ground, players running into each other, cleaning got worse as the game went on. Wiese made a lot of ground but his runs mostly came to nothing as the Boks could not find a way to use that momentum properly.

Rassies decision to change his teams so much in the buildup (even though it blooded more players and combinations) backfired spectacularly as many players were very rusty and not match fit.

15 Damian Willemse, 14 Kurt-Lee Arendse, 13 Jesse Kriel, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Ethan Hooker, 10 Handre Pollard, 9 Cobus Reinach, 8 Jasper Wiese, 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit (c), 6 Siya Kolisi/Paul de Villiers, 5 Ruan Nortje, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Wilco Louw, 2 Malcolm Marx, 1 Ox Nche
Replacements: 16 Deon Fourie, 17 Gerhard Steenekamp, 18 Thomas du Toit, 19 Lood de Jager, 20 Andre Esterhuizen, 21 Cameron Hanekom, 22 Morne van den Berg, 23 Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu