Grant Williams and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu start at Ellis Park on Saturday. Neither can assume the shirt is his for the series. Rassie Erasmus has already named the Test he believes settles this one, and it is not the opener.
The short version
- Williams and Feinberg-Mngomezulu get the 9 and 10 shirts, with Cobus Reinach and Manie Libbok covering from the bench.
- Erasmus expects the series to turn on the third or fourth Test rather than Ellis Park, and says rotation is coming.
- His stated template has three Tests in it. This series has four, and the last one is in Baltimore.
On this page
- The pair who last started together in a Bristol defeat
- Why a Stormers combination counted for nothing
- The Test he thinks decides it
- The case for picking the same 23 four times
- Everything Erasmus said about the half-back call
- What Saturday is actually for
- Springboks half-backs: your questions
The Springboks half-backs for the first Test of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry are Grant Williams at scrum-half and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu at fly-half, with Cobus Reinach and Manie Libbok on the bench, at Ellis Park on Saturday 22 August 2026. Handré Pollard, Morné van den Berg and Herschel Jantjies are not in the 23 at all.
That last group is what head coach Rassie Erasmus spent longest accounting for.
The pair who last started together in a Bristol defeat
Williams arrives with 30 caps and a club season at the Kobe Steelers behind him. Feinberg-Mngomezulu has 20 and stayed at the Stormers. They have not started a match together in almost four years.
The last time was 17 November 2022, at Ashton Gate. South Africa ‘A’ lost 26-18 to Bristol Bears that night, and the pair have been on separate tracks ever since.
At scrum-half, the pecking order is now explicit. Erasmus called Reinach and Williams “clearly our one and two nines at the moment”, speaking after naming the side on Thursday, in comments carried by journalists. Reinach, 36 and on 53 caps, is the one who drops to the bench.
READ ALSO: The 23 Erasmus sat on until Thursday afternoon
Why a Stormers combination counted for nothing
Reinach and Feinberg-Mngomezulu play together in Cape Town every week. It bought Reinach nothing. Erasmus said club pairings are not a selection criterion for him, and that the call came down to who grasped the plan and who trained best.
Between Libbok, Pollard and Feinberg-Mngomezulu, and then between four scrum-halves, he described the whole exercise as “touch-and-go”.
The numbers behind it are less agonised than that sounds. Williams has produced five try assists in three tracked matches this year, a return no other scrum-half in the squad is close to. Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s evidence is stranger: on his return against Argentina on 8 August he made 11 tackles at a 100% success rate and scored five points, in a 17-10 win nobody called fluent.
the series will probably be won in Test three or four
Rassie Erasmus
The Test he thinks decides it
Erasmus did not stop at Saturday. Drawing on a Lions series and his own playing career, he put the decisive moment of this campaign three or four weeks away — and then narrowed it further. “The decider will always be match three,” he said.
That is a three-Test answer to a four-Test question. Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry runs to four Tests, the longest series between these countries in the professional era, and the last of them is not in South Africa at all.
| Test | Date | Venue |
|---|---|---|
| First | Sat 22 August | Ellis Park, Johannesburg |
| Second | Sat 29 August | Cape Town Stadium |
| Third | Sat 5 September | FNB Stadium, Johannesburg |
| Fourth | Sat 12 September | M&T Bank Stadium, Baltimore |
On a Lions tour, match three is the decider because there is no match four. Here a side can lose at FNB Stadium on 5 September and still level the series in Maryland a week later, in front of a crowd that belongs to neither of them.
Neutral ground has form in this fixture, and it favours the hosts of Saturday. South Africa’s last meeting with New Zealand outside either country ended 35-7 at Twickenham in 2023.
The case for picking the same 23 four times
Rotation has a bill attached. A 9-10 axis takes weeks to settle, and this one is starting from a standing position after four years apart.
New Zealand have spent three weeks building rhythm. They beat the Stormers 38-21 in Cape Town, the Sharks 54-0 in Durban and the Bulls XV 50-19 at Loftus, with a settled shape and no need to explain anything to anybody.
There is also a structural limit on Saturday. Erasmus has gone five forwards and three backs, so André Esterhuizen, Reinach and Libbok are the entire supply of cover behind the scrum. Whatever he plans for Cape Town, he cannot rotate much in Johannesburg.
Everything Erasmus said about the half-back call
Erasmus spoke after naming the side on Thursday 20 August. His comments on the half-backs, on the players who missed out and on where he expects the series to be settled, as carried by Planet Rugby:
On starting Williams and Feinberg-Mngomezulu
“We think they are the two best options to start.”
“Sacha has done wonderful things when he’s played for us; he was the fly-half last year when we beat them in Wellington, and Cobus and Grant are clearly our one and two nines at the moment.”
On ignoring the Stormers combination
“We don’t always go with (club) combinations because Cobus and Sacha play together at the Stormers; we don’t look at that. We look at which player understands what we’re trying to do and which player trained the best.”
On how close the calls were
“It’s always a tough call between Manie, Handre, and Sacha. It’s tough between Krappies (Morne van den Berg), Cobus, Grant, and even Herschel Jantjies, who is training really, really well.”
“So it was touch-and-go who should play and who should not play; but in our squad we like to rotate, and hopefully if things go our way on Saturday, we can make a few changes next week.”
On where the series gets decided
“We firmly believe, from our experience with a Lions series and when I played earlier in my younger days, that the series will probably be won in Test three or four.”
“If you win the first match, you have a better chance of winning it (the series) because you just have to win another one, and then you can’t lose it; but the decider will always be match three.”
“So we are keeping everybody involved, everybody excited to play, and then the next guy gets his chance.”
What Saturday is actually for
Damian de Allende wins his 100th cap at Ellis Park, the tenth South African to get there. Pieter-Steph du Toit captains on 98, with Siya Kolisi unavailable.
After that the tour keeps moving fast. The All Blacks face the Lions at the same ground on Tuesday 25 August, and the second Test follows in Cape Town on 29 August — the week Erasmus has flagged for changes.
What’s your prediction?
Springboks half-backs: your questions
Who are the Springboks half-backs against the All Blacks?
Grant Williams starts at scrum-half and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu at fly-half for the first Test at Ellis Park on Saturday 22 August 2026. Cobus Reinach and Manie Libbok cover both positions from the replacements. Handré Pollard, Morné van den Berg and Herschel Jantjies missed out on the 23 entirely.
Why was Handré Pollard left out?
No injury was given. Erasmus described the choice between Pollard, Libbok and Feinberg-Mngomezulu as a hard one and went with the incumbent, having also kept Libbok as the fly-half cover on the bench. With four Tests to fill, Pollard is likely to feature later in the series.
Where is the fourth Test being played?
M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, on Saturday 12 September 2026. It is the only Test of the series outside South Africa, added to take the fixture into a United States market both unions have been targeting, and it is why Erasmus’s “match three” logic does not quite fit.
If Ellis Park is not the decider, then Saturday is an audition with three more rounds to run. Would you have started Reinach and Libbok now and saved this pairing for Baltimore?
Read next
- Ruben Love v Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu — the carrying stat that flatters the wrong No 10
- Three tour wins, one warning — what New Zealand’s scorelines hide
- Ellis Park match centre — line-ups, kick-off time and the score as it lands
