Watch every second of the All Blacks tour of South Africa live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\n“Luke is the obvious choice to captain the team against the Sharks. He is highly respected, has a great feel for the game and will lead through his actions,” said head coach Dave Rennie.<\/p>\n
A couple of replacements, hooker Bradley Slater and loose forward Semisi Ta’eiloa, are set to wear the famed black jersey for the first time at Kings Park stadium.<\/p>\n
Slater was not part of the original 44-man tour squad, but\u00a0flew to South Africa when George Bell had to return home having suffered a calf strain while training.<\/p>\n
“Two more players will pull on the All Blacks jersey for the first time against the Sharks,” said Rennie.<\/p>\n
“On behalf of the squad, I want to congratulate Semisi and Bradley on achieving this very special milestone, and I know their family and friends will be incredibly proud.<\/p>\n
“The opening match gave the players a real introduction to the way that South African teams play and the Sharks will be no different.<\/p>\n
– ‘Excitement’ –<\/p>\n
“There is a lot of excitement in the group, with the majority of the squad about to play their first game of the tour.”<\/p>\n
Eight starters against the Sharks, including Jacobson, were in the run-on team that beat Ireland 40-21 in the Nations Championship last month.<\/p>\n
They include 25-year-old fly-half Ruben Love, who started all three Tests in the inaugural Nations Championship.<\/p>\n
This will be the seventh time the All Blacks face the Sharks, formerly Natal. They won five of the previous tour matches against the Durban club and drew one.<\/p>\n
A Sharks squad depleted by the absence of many Springboks on international duty have included 44-year-old former All Blacks back Ma’a Nonu among the replacements.<\/p>\n
A centre\/winger, two-time Rugby World Cup winner Nonu made 103 Test appearances for New Zealand between 2003 and 2015, scoring 155 points.<\/p>\n
The Sharks announced last month that the New Zealander was joining them as a player mentor, but did not say then whether he would continue playing.<\/p>\n
After the Sharks, the All Blacks face the Bulls in Pretoria on Saturday before the first Test against world champions South Africa in Johannesburg on August 22.<\/p>\n
TEAMS<\/p>\n
New Zealand (15-1): Damian McKenzie; Fehi Fineanganofo, Quinn Tupaea, Jordie Barrett, Caleb Clarke; Ruben Love, Kyle Preston; Wallace Sititi, Luke Jacobson (capt), Tupou Vaa’i; Sam Darry, Josh Lord; Fletcher Newell, Asafo Aumua, Ethan de Groot<\/p>\n
Replacements: Bradley Slater, Ollie Norris, Pasilio Tosi, Ethan Blackadder, Semisi Ta’eiloa, Cam Roigard, Timoci Tavatavanawai, Emoni Narawa<\/p>\n
Sharks (15-1):\u00a0Zekhethelo Siyaya; Donovan Don, Jurenzo Julius, Murray Koster, Litelihle Bester; Vusi Moyo, Bradley Davids; Nick Hatton (capt), Manu Tshituka, Phepsi Buthelezi; Emile van Heerden, Hendre Stassen; Vincent Koch, Eduan Swart, \u00a0Nemo Roelofse<\/p>\n
Replacements: Liam van Wyk, Rambo Kubekha, Simphiwe Ngobese, Vincent Tshituka, Matt Romao, Ivan van Zyl, Luan Giliomee, Ma’a Nonu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luke Jacobson will captain New Zealand for the first time when they face the Sharks in Durban on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[10751,64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-849739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-all-blacks","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849739","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=849739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}