South Africa v New Zealand - Teams and Prediction
PREVIEW: It’s all to play for in the decider of the Greatest Rivalry series when the Springboks lock horns with the All Blacks at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore.
The script during this series couldn’t have gone any better – a win for the All Blacks at Ellis Park in the first Test followed by two victories by the Springboks in Cape Town and Soweto, respectively, ensures that this fixture won’t be a dead rubber, regardless of the outcome.
For the All Blacks, a series win is out of reach, but they would take a lot of heart should they claim victory over the Springboks for the second time in four weeks and share the RGR trophy.
For the World Champion Boks, a drawn series would in all probability feel like a loss, knowing they had the opportunity to clinch the full trophy.
Bok coach Rassie Erasmus spoke about the clash and how they are approaching the fixture.
“It’s just two good teams who are facing each other again.
“It’s self-explanatory that if New Zealand win it’s a draw and if we’re victorious we’ll win the series.
“That’s what’s on the line, and that’s how we’re approaching this week.”
Erasmus mentioned how Ardie Savea’s absence may affect the All Blacks, but conceded that they have enough quality loose forwards who can step up and fill his boots.
“Ardie [Savea] is a real influential player for them; it’s like when Siya [Kolisi] didn’t play the first Test for us at Ellis Park, but those players must just be replaced by the next guy coming in.
“Knowing the New Zealand depth and Dave [Rennie’s] coaching abilities.
“We shared a chartered plane, and you think as a coach that our players are big, but the New Zealanders are definitely also massive people.
“You’ll probably never be able to replace a guy like Ardie Savea 100 percent, but players get older, they retire, and one day you have to replace them.
“They played without him in the midweek games [against the United Rugby Championship teams].”
Neutral venue is not an issue
Erasmus touched on the Boks’ neutral ground experiences overall and how they’ll draw on the South African support despite not playing on home ground.
“When you’re winning big games, it’s satisfying, and it makes you feel good, and you’re proud of your team’s efforts.
“You never stop playing; people might get tired of us saying this, but we played in World Cups, we played a British and Irish Lions series in front of no spectators in South Africa when we were 0-1 down.
“We’ve played the Rugby Championship during COVID times in Australia when there were almost no South Africans in the stands because they couldn’t get out of the country.
“We try to remind ourselves a lot of that, and obviously we play for ourselves, families, teammates, etc.; the thing is, as much as those people are not here, New Zealand are in the same boat.
“We had this experience several times against New Zealand, and many times we were on the losing side.
“Our motivation is never about something else; we saw last weekend how the South African public supported us even after we lost at Ellis Park in the first Test.
“When you lose, some people turn against you, but the majority stayed positive and kept supporting us, and we remember those things, and we play for them as well.
“It was really emotional in Soweto; it would’ve been terrible to lose there after what the people put up for us there.”
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Erasmus elaborated on the topic of playing at a neutral venue and said the Boks are no strangers to facing the All Blacks in this scenario.
“A neutral ground is still 70×100 metres with a good crowd. The only thing we’ll really miss is our home support, and New Zealand will also miss theirs.
“We’ll have to play them on neutral ground, which we’ve done several times, for instance at World Cups, at Twickenham [2023], so it’s going to be quite a match.”
A near sold-out crowd is expected for this clash, with the M&T Stadium’s capacity of 70,745. It should be an interesting dynamic as to which set of fans will trump the other in terms of numbers.
Bok centre Damian de Allende echoed Erasmus’ view and urged the American public to come out and support the event, despite rugby not being one of the main sports in the country.
“They should come out and watch the rivalry between the Springboks and New Zealand – for us it’s very special,” De Allende said.
“It might be a bit tough to sell to an American as a sport – they do know rugby but not as well as we do and maybe they don’t appreciate it as much as we do.
“The best way to sell it is to have them come to the stadium and enjoy the experience of watching the top two teams in the world.
“That’s the best [rugby] product they can witness and experience in America at the moment to watch this match.
“Hopefully we can sell it to them, and get many South Africans to come and watch, but also a lot of American supporters as well.”
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All Blacks Dave Rennie made several changes to his side, with the main focus on his loose trio selection following the injury to Ardie Savea and explained his reasoning for it.
“Wallce [Sititi] was really good off the bench last week, and we talked a lot about starting him. Tupes [Tupou Vaa’i] played his best rugby at No.6, and Ethan [Blackadder] will play 120 minutes if you need him to do so, it makes sense to start him, and he’s been excellent.
“So it came down to Wallace and Pete [Peter Lakai]; we feel that the bench we selected will be important with 30 or 40 minutes to go. He [Sititi] was great last week, and we expect him to have the same impact.”
Rennie also spoke about the return of Codie Taylor, who is named as captain, after missing out entirely in the Soweto fixture last week.
“Well, he’s our tour captain, so it makes sense [selecting him] to us. We’ve lost a fair bit of experience due to injury with Luke [Jacobson] and Ardie out.
“When Ardie left the field last week, Luke took over. With both of them unavailable, we felt that Codie coming back in, despite being an excellent player, he gives us a lot of experience and leadership, and that’s been really valuable throughout the week, and we have Asafo [Aumua] to come in later in the game to provide impact.”
Speaking about what’s required to win and level the series, Rennie said that the set-piece will be key once more, an area the All Blacks struggled in throughout the series.
“There are a lot of key things, but we just need to be better. We created a lot of opportunities last weekend and had 12 linebreaks to five, but the Springboks are so good at scrambling on defence and forcing it to make the right decision and at times we had plenty of numbers out wide, but they did well to shut us down.
“The set-piece stuff will be very important. What frustrated us during the second half was our inability to play with the continuity we wanted to, and that’s our own issue.
“We made errors that led to a scrum which resulted in penalties for the Boks, and they were able to piggyback down the field, so we will have to be better in that area.”
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Players to watch:
For South Africa: The return of Damian Willemse is a massive boost in terms of the fielding of high balls and counterattacks, especially with the absence of Cheslin Kolbe. In the same breath, Ethan Hooker’s ability to apply pressure in the air and retain contestable kicks will be key in this clash. Morne van den Berg shot the lights out with his performance off the bench last week and will want to pick up where he left off. In the pack, Jasper Wiese will once more be a vital cog to give the Boks forward momentum whilst Malcolm Marx’s accuracy at set-piece and the breakdown will be crucial across the board.
For New Zealand: Will Jordan’s finishing ability will once more be a key to the All Blacks’ success, but the big focus will be on Richie Mo’unga, who starts his first Test for the first time since the 2023 World Cup Final. All eyes will be on the rejigged loose trio of Peter Lakai, Ethan Blackadder and Tupou Vaa’i, whilst the inclusion of Patrick Tuipulotu could prove to be a masterstroke by Rennie to nullify the Boks’ set-piece dominance.
*See the teams and prediction below!
Prediction:
Rugby365: South Africa by one point
Teams:
South Africa: 15 Damian Willemse, 14 Kurt-Lee Arendse, 13 Jesse Kriel, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Ethan Hooker, 10 Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, 9 Morne van den Berg, 8 Jasper Wiese, 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 6 Siya Kolisi (captain), 5 Ruan Nortje, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Wilco Louw, 2 Malcolm Marx, 1 Ox Nche.
Replacements: 16 Deon Fourie, 17 Gerhard Steenekamp, 18 Thomas du Toit, 19 Lood de Jager, 20 Andre Esterhuizen, 21 Cameron Hanekom, 22 Cobus Reinach, 23 Manie Libbok.
New Zealand: 15 Damian McKenzie, 14 Will Jordan, 13 Anton Lienert-Brown, 12 Jordie Barrett, 11 Josh Moorby, 10 Richie Mo’unga, 9 Cam Roigard, 8 Peter Lakai, 7 Ethan Blackadder, 6 Tupou Vaa’i, 5 Sam Darry, 4 Patrick Tuipulotu, 3 Fletcher Newell, 2 Codie Taylor (captain), 1 Ethan de Groot.
Replacements: 16 Asafo Aumua, 17 Xavier Numia, 18 Tyrel Lomax, 19 Josh Lord, 20 Wallace Sititi, 21 Kyle Preston, 22 Rieko Ioane, 23 Beauden Barrett.
Date: Saturday, September 12
Venue: M&T Bank Stadium, Baltimore
Kick-off: 17.00 EDT (23.00 SAST; 21.00 GMT; 09.00 NZST Sunday, September 13)
Expected weather: A low of 22 degrees Celsius and a high of 27 degrees Celsius. Mostly cloudy and humid; a thunderstorm in spots in the afternoon and winds of 11 kilometres per hour
Referee: Karl Dickson (England)
Assistant referees: Matthew Carley (England), Christophe Ridley (England)
TMO: Andrew Jackson (England)
