The Springboks lost 33–16 at Ellis Park and Rassie Erasmus has answered with experience rather than upheaval. Handré Pollard starts, Siya Kolisi passed a fitness test on Monday, and the selection that will start arguments is sitting on the bench. Team news verified 26 August.
Thirty-nine years old, and Deon Fourie is in a Springbok matchday squad again. The last time he was in one, South Africa beat New Zealand by a point in a World Cup final in Paris.
That is the loudest thing Rassie Erasmus has done this week. Not Pollard.
South Africa lost the opening Test of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry 33–16 at Ellis Park on Saturday 22 August, five tries to one, with Will Jordan scoring two of them. Lose again at DHL Stadium on Saturday and a four-Test series turns into a formality with two matches still to play. So the South Africa vs New Zealand prediction worth making this week is not about the tour. It is about whether there is still a tour left by six o’clock on Saturday evening. You can check every fixture, result and kick-off time on the tour if you want the full shape of it.
Kick-off is 17:10 in Cape Town, 15:10 UTC. The stadium is sold out.
Erasmus did not blink, and that is the story
A coach who thinks his team was outplayed rips it up. A coach who thinks his team beat itself keeps the spine and changes the details.
Erasmus kept the spine.
Handré Pollard comes back into the starting side at fly-half with Cobus Reinach inside him. Ethan Hooker takes the wing because Cheslin Kolbe is injured. Grant Williams is out too. Morné van den Berg and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu are held back for the last half hour, which Erasmus explained in plain terms when he named the side.
“Handré has delivered for us under extreme pressure, and we feel that what he and Cobus have the potential to bring at the beginning of the game. Then have Morné and Sacha come on later with their different styles of play will be good for us this weekend.”
— Rassie Erasmus, Springboks team announcement, 24 August
Read that again. It is a first-half plan and a second-half plan, built as two separate things, and it says Erasmus believes the first Test was lost in the opening half hour rather than at the end. Pollard is the man he picks when the scoreboard needs a foot on it early.
There are two milestones in the same team sheet. Pieter-Steph du Toit wins his 100th cap, the 11th Springbok to get there. Ox Nché makes his 50th. And Kolisi came through the fitness test on Monday and takes the armband back after a week of doubt, with Erasmus confirming he had run at full tilt without discomfort. If you want the full 23 Erasmus named, position by position, it is all there.
Read also: why the scrum has been South Africa’s standing Test advantage, and why losing it changes everything else about how they play.
New Zealand have a problem they have not solved yet
Dave Rennie names his side on Thursday, so anyone calling the All Blacks XV today is guessing.
What is known is the damage. Josh Lord is injured. Anton Segner is out of the rest of the tour after an ankle problem that needed two operations. Rennie called in an uncapped front-rower. Patrick Tuipulotu, the captain, got forty minutes into his legs against the Lions on Tuesday and is the obvious man to come into the second row.
That Lions match should worry New Zealand more than they will admit. They won 41–35 after being pushed to the edge by a provincial side four days out from a Test match. Winning ugly in midweek is not a crime. Doing it while your lock stocks are thinning is a different matter.
The two battles that decide it
Ten against ten. Ruben Love kept the jersey through a Springbok pack at altitude and did very little wrong doing it. Cape Town asks a harder question. At sea level the ball does not travel as far, the box kick sits up rather than skidding on, and a fly-half has to make his metres through people instead of over them. Pollard has spent a career doing exactly that.
The set piece. Ellis Park was not settled by scrums, which is the part South Africa will find hardest to accept. A front row with Nché winning his fiftieth cap in it is picked to make sure the second Test is. Watch the first three scrums. Not the outcome, the reset: whether the Springbok front row gets a second, deliberate shove after the engagement settles, or whether the referee is already walking to the mark before they can organise one.
The variable nobody in New Zealand wants to mention
Ellis Park sits at roughly 1,750 metres. DHL Stadium sits on the Atlantic seaboard.
Everything the All Blacks earned at altitude last Saturday, they earned in conditions that punish the team doing the chasing. Cape Town gives none of that back. The ball is heavier in the air, the collisions come at you more often because play stays alive longer, and a bench built for the last twenty minutes actually gets a last twenty minutes to work with.
That cuts both ways, which is exactly why this is worth voting on rather than assuming.
So which way does Cape Town go? Call it before kickoff
Two honest readings, and reasonable people hold both.
The first: New Zealand were the better side by a distance at Ellis Park, they have their captain back in the second row, and a Springbok team that changes almost nothing after a fifteen-point defeat is a team hoping rather than fixing. Wounded animals are dangerous in commentary. On scoreboards they usually just lose again.
The second: South Africa have Pollard back to steady the first half, du Toit playing his hundredth in front of a sold-out crowd, and a bench that now includes a man who was there the last time these two met with something enormous on it.
Pick one. The winner is five points, the margin is worth up to ten more if you get it close, and an exact call is another five on top.
Our Prediction of South Afirca vs New Zealand 2nd Test
South Africa by 3. 27–24.
Pollard kicks them into a lead inside twenty minutes, the scrum gives them a platform Ellis Park never did, and the Cape Town crowd does the rest of the work on a New Zealand side carrying more injuries than it had seven days ago. It is not a prediction of a Springbok surge. It is a prediction that the first Test flattered a team who played their best rugby in the conditions that suited them most.
That is on the record. It can be held against this page on Saturday night.
Read next: John Smit watched Ellis Park from the stand and says the Springboks have stopped asking questions of themselves — the argument for why one week is enough time to fix this.
South Africa vs New Zealand: your questions
What time is South Africa vs New Zealand in Cape Town?
Kick-off is 17:10 South African time on Saturday 29 August at DHL Stadium, which is 15:10 UTC, 16:10 in the UK and Ireland, and 03:10 on Sunday morning in New Zealand.
Is Siya Kolisi fit for the second Test?
Yes. Erasmus confirmed on 24 August that Kolisi came through a full-intensity running session without discomfort, and he starts at blindside flanker and captains the side.
When is the All Blacks team for the second Test announced?
Dave Rennie names his matchday squad on Thursday 27 August. Josh Lord is injured and Anton Segner has been ruled out of the remainder of the tour, so the second row and back row are where the changes will come.
The table for Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry currently has two names on it. Both of them got the first Test wrong. Lock a score in above before 15:10 UTC on Saturday, and if you want that pick counted with your name against it, the leaderboard runs on display names and display names come with an account at wetalkrugby.com/join. Top of the table after Cape Town is available to whoever calls it closest.
