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Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus.
Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus has named a strong starting fifteen for Saturday’s Rugby Championship opener against Australia.
The match will be played at Johannesburg’s Ellis Park Stadium.
Siya Kolisi will captain the side in the number eight jersey, while Manie Libbok will don the number ten jersey and Aphelele Fassi will be the fullback.
Lock Eben Etzebeth will extend his record as the most capped Bok of all time to 134 test matches when he takes the field on Saturday.
The match-day squad features 18 World Cup winners and only three players with five test caps or less.
Erasmus deviated from the norm and decided to announce his match-day squad a day earlier.
“We’ve been preparing three weeks for Australia. It does not normally happen. Normally, after the incoming series, the next test match is pretty closer or at a shorter period. That’s why we are announcing it early to get the speculation out of the way, so that you guys can speculate about the team that will play. The team knows already who’s playing. So, getting this out of the way so that we can focus on really training well and preparing.”
But Erasmus believes that this 23-man match-day squad is well equipped to deal with any threats the Wallabies may pose.
“I think it’s really solid but we hope things go according to plan. Hopefully, next week we will [give] other guys a chance. There will be guys that will swing in both matches. I think it’s a relatively strong team that we picked,” he explains.
