Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus has retained 36 of the 38 players who did duty for the team during the two Castle Lager Rugby Championship matches against Australia for their tour to New Zealand.
The Boks will face the All Blacks in back-to-back Tests at Eden Park in Auckland on Saturday, 6 September, and the Sky Stadium in Wellington a week later on 13 September.
With wings injured, Makazole Mapimpi, who joined the team in Cape Town last week, will make the trip down under, following the injury of wings Kurt-Lee Arendse, while the only utility forward Cobus Wiese has been placed on standby.
“This group of players have been working hard together since our first training camp in June.
Most of them have been playing together for years, while the newer players in the squad showed in the Castle Lager Incoming Series and in the last two matches against Australia that they are ready for this challenge.
Captain Siya Kolisi, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Willie le Roux, and Jan-Hendrik Wessels have been medically cleared from their niggles, while all the players who faced Australia in Cape Town have received a clean bill of health and will be ready to face the All Blacks,” said Erasmus.
The coach acknowledged that the team expected a tough test against the All Blacks in their backyard, but the team will do everything in its power to defend the Castle Lager Rugby Championship title.
“The Castle Lager Rugby Championship is still wide open with all four teams having won a match in the first two rounds.
So, this tour is going to be vital for us, and we’ll certainly take confidence from the win against Australia last week when we board the plane.
Facing the All Blacks in New Zealand is a massive challenge, but all the teams in this competition are ranked among the top sides in the world, and each one has the potential to beat one another on the day,” explained the coach.
In addition, Erasmus said the team learned valuable lessons from their first game which it lost against the Aussies, and is aware of the task ahead, to their standards.
“We won our last four matches against them dating back to 2023, which marked only the second time in history that we defeated them four times in a row, and there is no doubt that will motivate both teams.
So, we need to ensure that we build on what we’ve been working on this year in the Castle Lager Incoming Series and Castle Lager Rugby Championship and take another step-up before facing them in two weeks,” remarked the coach.
The team will depart for New Zealand on Tuesday to give it sufficient time to acclimatise to the time zone.
