2 (+1) changes for France

Rassie has picked Wilco Louw (arguably the strongest tight head in the scrum in the world) to start with Thomas moving to the bench. Cobus Reinach moves onto the bench while Grant Williams drops out of the squad. Franco Mostert is officially the reserve lock / blindside on the bench this time.

The French team has been severely interrupted after Romain Ntamack joined Matthieu Jalibert, Thomas Ramos and Antoine Hastoy on the injury list. They will also be missing Emmanuel Meafou and Thibaud Flament in the second row plus flankers Anthony Jelonch, Oscar Jegou and Paul Boudehent. However there are still a number of quality players in that team including Du Pont, Lucu, LBB, Attissogbe and Moefana.

The competition is currently a race between the Springboks and the All Blacks as to who ends up top of the log. The top team in each conference will compete for the trophy while the second placed teams will compete for third place. At the moment both teams have 20 log points with the Boks leading Point Difference with 140 vs 73. Looking at how the All Blacks just dismantled Scotland one would expect them to get the bonus point against Wales within the first twenty minutes and then rack up a cricket score. The Boks will have a much tougher ask against France.

15 Damian Willemse, 14 Kurt-Lee Arendse, 13 Jesse Kriel, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Ethan Hooker, 10 Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, 9 Morné van den Berg, 8 Jasper Wiese, 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 6 Siya Kolisi (c), 5 Ruan Nortjé, 4 Lood de Jager, 3 Wilco Louw, 2 Malcolm Marx, 1 Ox Nché.
Bench: 16 Jan-Hendrik Wessels, 17 Gerhard Steenekamp, 18 Thomas du Toit, 19 Franco Mostert, 20 Cameron Hanekom, 21 Paul de Villiers, 22 Cobus Reinach, 23 Manie Libbok.