Category: Springboks

Rassie has picked Manie Libbok to start at flyhalf with Jaden Hendrikse at scrumhalf. Big guns Cheslin Kolbe, Damian de Allende, Pieter-Steph du Toit, 6 Siya Kolisi, Frans Malherbe and Bongi Mbonambi have all been recalled to the starting lineup.

Cobus Reinach and Handre Pollard will offer a lot of experience from the bench.

Rassie has rested a number of his first choice players such as PSDT, Cheslin Kolbe, Damian de Allende, Willie le Roux, Frans Malherbe and Bongi Mbonambi. This means players like Aphelele Fassi gets another chance to shine in the Bok jersey.

Grant Williams has been promoted to start, while Aphelele Fassi (who played really well apart from one poor clearance kick) drops out of the squad and is replaced by Willie le Roux. Handre Pollard starts the game at 10 with Sacha dropping to the bench. Lukhanyo Am joins Jaden Hendrikse on the bench. The Boks will have no lock cover on the bench with PSDT covering from the blind side.

Aphelele Fassi has kept the 15 jersey while Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu has also been retained at flyhalf. The Boks have a bit of a lock crisis – so Ruan Nortje will partner PSDT with no recognized lock on the bench. Jasper Wiese will get another chance at number 8. Eben Etzenbeth has been cleared to play and will replace Marco van Staden on the bench

Rassie is resting a number of his first choice players such as Bongi Mbonambi, Frans Malherbe, Siya Kolisi, Damian de Allende, Kurt-Lee Arendse and Willie le Roux. Aphelele Fassi, Lukhanyo Am, Makazole Mapimpi, Morne van den Berg, Ruan Nortje, Salmaan Moerat, Thomas du Toit, Johan Grobbelaar and Jan-Hendrik Wessels will get another chance to impress for the Boks.

Rassie has selected Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu to start at 10 in the first game of the Rugby Championship. He is paired with Cobus Reinach with Grant Williams on the bench.

Kwagga Smith has been moved back into his impact role from the bench with the more physical Elrigh Louw selected to start at 8. Malcolm Marx is back on the bench after recovering from the knee injury picked up being croc-rolled in the game against Ireland.

Salmaan Moerat will captain the Boks against Portugal with only Kurt-Lee Arendse retained from the backline from last Saturday.

Aphelele Fassi, Lukhanyo Am, Andre Esterhuizen, Makazole Mapimpi, Phepsi Buthelezi, Ntuthuko Mchunu and Trevor Nyakane will all feature in the team with Phepsi Buthelezi due to get his first Bok cap at open side. It seems Rassie agree with Plumtree that Phepsi’s future lies at the side of the scrum.

Rassie has kept the same squad as last week for the final test against the Irish.

The Boks usually struggle a bit for teams cohesion in the first tests of the season. However one can already see the influence of Tony Brown on the attack with the Boks much more willing to take the ball wide. PSTD and Kolisi both featured strongly close to the side lines in the build up to KLA’s try.

Rassie has backed a number of the Boks (including Handre Pollard) who won the World Cup last year. He has gone with a 6-2 bench with the versatile Grant Williams and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu covering all the back line positions between them.

Phepsi Buthelezi, Aphelele Fassi, Andre Esterhuizen and Grant Williams have all been retained in the Bok squad with the other regular Shark Boks (Ox, Bongi, Koch, Etzebeth, Am and Mapimpi). New Shark Trevor Nyakane is also in the squad. Nuthuko Mchunu and Ethan Hooker are part of the standby list and will have some training sessions with the squad over the next four weeks.

It will be interesting to see who is appointed as captain with Siya Kolisi also back in the mix.