Watch the 2025 Rugby Championship live and on-demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nErasmus warned he would make changes in the wake of what he called a “terrible” performance at Eden Park two days ago and stayed true to his word.<\/p>\n
There are five alterations in a much younger backline, with Ethan Hooker to make his first Test start on the wing.<\/p>\n
Talented playmaker Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu replaces Pollard while the long-established midfield combination of Damian de Allende and Kriel make way for Damian Willemse and Canan Moodie, who moves from the wing.<\/p>\n
Veteran wing Cheslin Kolbe is the only back to start in the same position for a second week following the defeat which ended South Africa’s four-match winning streak against the All Blacks.<\/p>\n
The front row remains the same after a strong scrummaging performance but 136-Test veteran Etzebeth and Marco van Staden are replaced.<\/p>\n
Joining the starting pack are lock Lood de Jager and flanker Jasper Wiese, who missed last week’s Test while seeing out the end of a four-match suspension.<\/p>\n
Kolisi will earn a 96th cap and is skipper again, having ceded that role to Kriel last week because of an injury doubt.<\/p>\n
Erasmus described the new-look line-up as “exciting”.<\/p>\n
“We’ve maintained consistency in selection to a large degree in the last few matches but we’d like to see what some of the players can do against the top-ranked team in the world,” he said.<\/p>\n
“This is a vital match for our Rugby Championship campaign, and we feel some fresh legs and energy are what we need to come away with the desired result.”<\/p>\n
South Africa have lost two of their three Rugby Championship matches after a win and a defeat in home Tests against Australia.<\/p>\n
Erasmus said an improvement from the error-filled Auckland display was critical.<\/p>\n
“After the disappointing performance we delivered in the opening stages of that match, we know we need to be much more effective in all departments,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We’ll leave no stone unturned to fix those errors. There’s no doubt that we have to deliver a proper 80-minute performance to do well.”<\/p>\n
South Africa (15-1): Aphelele Fassi; Cheslin Kolbe, Canan Moodie, Damian Willemse, Ethan Hooker; Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Cobus Reinach; Jasper Wiese, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Siya Kolisi (capt); Ruan Nortje, Lood de Jager; Thomas du Toit, Malcolm Marx, Ox Nche.<\/p>\n
Replacements: Marnus van der Merwe, Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Wilco Louw, RG Snyman, Kwagga Smith, Grant Williams, Manie Libbok, Andre Esterhuizen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Africa coach Rassie Erasmus on Monday overhauled his side for their Rugby Championship rematch with New Zealand,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[10751,64,63,760,85,2995,36831],"class_list":["post-127319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-all-blacks","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-springboks","tag-the-rugby-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}