Bismarck stays on the bench, Lood remains ahead of Bakkies and Pienaar gets another go. The Bok side shows only one change from last weekend, with Handré Pollard starting at flyhalf.
The Springbok team to face New Zealand in Wellington:
15 Willie le Roux, 14 Cornal Hendricks, 13 Jan Serfontein, 12 Jean de Villiers (captain), 11 Bryan Habana, 10 Handré Pollard, 9 Ruan Pienaar, 8 Duane Vermeulen, 7 Marcell Coetzee, 6 Francois Louw, 5 Victor Matfield, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Jannie du Plessis, 2 Adriaan Strauss, 1 Tendai Mtawarira.
Bench: 16 Bismarck du Plessis, 17 Trevor Nyakane, 18 Marcel van der Merwe, 19 Lood de Jager, 20 Warren Whiteley, 21 Francois Hougaard, 22 Pat Lambie, 23 Damian de Allende
Springbok captain Jean de Villiers will join four other South Africans when he leads the team out in his 100th Test, against New Zealand at the Westpac Stadium in Wellington (kick-off 09h35 SA time).
The 33-year-old De Villiers will become the 34th Test player to reach this milestone. With him on the field will be two of the four Bok centurions – the most-capped Springbok of all time, Victor Matfield (114 caps) and Bryan Habana, who reached this special milestone last weekend against Australia in Perth.
The other two Springbok centurions are John Smit (111) and Percy Montgomery (102).
Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer lauded De Villiers, not only for the role he had played since taking over as captain in 2012, but also during the rest of his career, on the field and away from it.
“When the big names in South African rugby are mentioned, Jean will forever be among them,” said Meyer.
“He’s showed a lot of character and resilience to get here and to me, those are things that set him apart. Jean is not only an extremely good rugby player, but he’s also one of the greatest captains I’ve ever worked with.
“Jean is also a true ambassador for South Africa. To see how he is respected all over the world, is truly humbling and our fellow countrymen can be proud of him.
“Despite all of the success and responsibility, he’s never lost that sparkle in his eye and he treats everyone around him with respect.”
De Villiers, the SA Rugby Player of the Year in 2008 and 2013, will line up next to Pollard, whose inclusion in the starting line-up is the only change from the team which played in Perth last weekend. The bench is unchanged.
“We felt that Handré has the right skill set for how we want to approach this game,” said Meyer.
“He played well in the three Tests that he started. A couple of months ago, he was named the World Junior Player of the Year after some very impressive performances here for the Junior Springboks and I’m sure he can build on that.
“It’s also good for continuity to have an almost unchanged side. We know where we made mistakes last weekend and the players now have an opportunity to rectify those against the toughest opponent in world rugby.”
I’m not so sure about this decision. As much as I really like the look of Pollard at 10, I just think Steyn should at least have made the bench as a bit of a safety net. What does this do to the confidence of the player?
Perhaps Heyneke is thinking that we now have our backs against the wall in the tournament needing to win all our remaining games to have a shot at the title. So let’s try and take it to the AB’s and play some rugby. (one can always hope)
There are only 2 ways to beat the AB’s. Like the Boks usually try; keep it tight and kick it high. Or by playing like the AB’s, smashing it up and working the angles and sequences in order to create space out wide and then exploit that space with a 10 playing to the line and putting away guys through the spaces out wide.
Let’s hope the Boks can pull off the latter on Saturday and I am interested to see where to from here for M Steyn….
I cannot see the boks winning.I am happy that Morne has not been included.He cost us a chance for a win last week.