{"id":69785,"date":"2025-08-15T08:35:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T08:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/69785\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T08:35:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T08:35:10","slug":"rassie-forced-to-make-late-change-for-rugby-championship-opener-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/69785\/","title":{"rendered":"Rassie forced to make late change for Rugby Championship opener &#8211; australia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>TEAM UPDATE: Springbok head coach Rassie Erasmus has been forced to make a late change to his matchday 23 for Saturday\u2019s Test against the Wallabies.<\/p>\n<p>Prop Boan Venter will provide front row cover off the bench in the Rugby Championship opener following the withdrawal of Jan-Hendrik Wessels.<\/p>\n<p>  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/like-loading.gif\" class=\"loading-game\"\/>  <\/p>\n<p>Venter, who made his Test debut against Georgia during the Incoming Series, will partner up with Bongi Mbonambi and Asenathi Ntlabakanye as the back-up front row after Wessels suffered a niggle at training on Wednesday, which ruled him out of the match.<\/p>\n<p>The encounter will mark Venter\u2019s first Rugby Championship match and his first against Australia.<\/p>\n<p>South Africa \u2013 revised: 15 Aphelele Fassi, 14 Edwill van der Merwe, 13 Jesse Kriel, 12 Andre Esterhuizen, 11 Kurt-Lee Arendse, 10 Manie Libbok, 9 Grant Williams, 8 Siya Kolisi (captain), 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit , 6 Marco van Staden, 5 Lood de Jager, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Wilco Louw, 2 Malcolm Marx, 1 Ox Nche.<br \/>Replacements: 16 Bongi Mbonambi, 17 Boan Venter, 18 Asenathi Ntlabakanye, 19 Franco Mostert, 20 Kwagga Smith, 21 Cobus Reinach, 22 Canan Moodie, 23 Damian Willemse.<\/p>\n<p>Date: Saturday, August 16<br \/>Venue: Ellis Park, Johannesburg<br \/>Kick-off: 17.10 (15.10 GMT; 01:10, AEST, Sunday, August 17)<br \/>Referee: Ben O\u2019Keeffe (New Zealand)<br \/>Assistant referees: James Doleman (New Zealand), Gianluca Gnecchi (Italy)<br \/>TMO: Tual Trainini (France)<\/p>\n<p>  <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/thumb-spacer.png\" alt=\"Video Spacer\" width=\"100%\" style=\"margin:-8px 0\"\/>      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEAM UPDATE: Springbok head coach Rassie Erasmus has been forced to make a late change to his matchday&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-69785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69785","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=69785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}