{"id":559068,"date":"2026-08-04T21:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T21:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/559068\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T21:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T21:08:10","slug":"all-blacks-wallace-sititi-hails-quality-springboks-rookie-and-reveals-the-stormers-strengths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/559068\/","title":{"rendered":"All Blacks: Wallace Sititi hails ‘quality’ Springboks rookie and reveals the Stormers’ strengths"},"content":{"rendered":"

All Blacks back-row Wallace Sititi has sung the praises of Springboks<\/a> counterpart Paul de Villiers and highlighted where he expects the Stormers to test his team on Friday.<\/p>\n

New Zealand kick off their six-week tour against the Stormers at the DHL Stadium, and Sititi is relishing the opportunity of taking on John Dobson\u2019s charges.<\/p>\n

One player who proved to be a sensation for the men from the Cape during the 2025\/26 season is young openside flanker De Villiers<\/a> and his excellent form has been rewarded with a call-up to the Springboks squad.<\/p>\n

After an impressive cameo off the bench for South Africa<\/a> in Gqeberha against the Barbarians, De Villiers made his Test debut in last month\u2019s Nations Championship victory over England in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n

Late replacement for Siya Kolisi<\/p>\n

He emptied the tank during a 46-minute stint and what made his performance more remarkable is the fact that he was a late addition to the world champions\u2019 starting line-up for that clash after regular Boks skipper Siya Kolisi was a late withdrawal due to injury.<\/p>\n

De Villiers retained his starting position in the Boks\u2019 run-on side and also shone in their other Nations Championship Tests against Scotland and Wales.<\/p>\n

Sititi<\/a> certainly took notice of the Springboks rookie and was impressed with what he has seen of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cBig boy,\u201d he told reporters at an All Blacks<\/a> training session in Cape Town on Monday. \u201cHe loves the collision battle. Good over the ball. He\u2019s a quality footy player.<\/p>\n

Ex-All Black reveals how \u2018competitor\u2019 Beauden Barrett can \u2018stake his claim\u2019 for Tests by shining in Stormers clash<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully we\u2019ll be able to see him a couple of times throughout this tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

De Villiers unlikely to play for the Stormers<\/p>\n

De Villiers won\u2019t turn out for the Stormers against the All Blacks on Friday as he is one of 12 Springboks who remained at the national team\u2019s base in Johannesburg while the rest of the squad flew out to Buenos Aires for their Test against Argentina on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Despite his absence from the Stormers<\/a> squad, Sititi expects a tough challenge from his opponents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a big pack, that is what we know,\u201d he said of the Stormers.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut they are a big forward pack that loves to run the ball, loves the collision battle, so we\u2019ve got to respect them up front.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey love to use the ball as well, so we\u2019ve got to be able to match them up front.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to give our backs out wide all the opportunities they want.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: \u2018His aura alone lifts that group\u2019 \u2013 New Zealand pundits explain why resting Ardie Savea will boost the All Blacks<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All Blacks back-row Wallace Sititi has sung the praises of Springboks counterpart Paul de Villiers and highlighted where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1463,1464,111,43,139,69,1466,213,117557],"class_list":["post-559068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-south-africa","tag-sports","tag-stormers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}