SA Rugby director of Rugby and Springbok coach, Rassie Erasmus, has signed off on a very young team to face Wales in Washington DC in the USA on Saturday.
Erasmus’s starting 15 features seven uncapped players, with a further six on the bench. Pieter-Steph du Toit will captain from lock before Siya Kolisi assumes responsibility next week.
Erasmus says he just wants his team to focus on what they’ve worked on during their practice sessions. The one-off test match against Wales will kick off the Springbok season and Erasmus said he worked hard to come up with his first Bok team.
“I’ve been picking it every week since I’ve been appointed; you watch the first super rugby weekend and you think, if we play this week, what will the team look like… then you do round two, and round three, and it changes a lot because players certainly reacted to some of the stuff we showed them through their super rugby coaches – and I’m really surprised at how quickly some of the guys have latched on to some of the stuff. So the team was consistently changing, but the last three or four weeks it stayed the same. Obviously there were a few injuries in the last two games which changed the team, but I’m proud, and I think this is a really good team going over there… and the squad to pick the next side out of is really good, so I’m confident.”
Newly appointed Springbok captain, Siya Kolisi, will begin his captaincy duties in earnest when the Boks face England in a three test series, starting on Saturday the ninth of June at Ellis Park in Johannesburg.
Kolisi says it’s still dawning on him what his appointment means to South Africa.
“To be honest, I think when I play my first game it will really hit me that I’m a Springbok captain. You know me, I’m just proud to be a captain… it means a lot to me, it’s a huge privilege and an honour, and I think I’ll realise it when I’m playing, when it’s the week of the test match… but for now I’ve just been working and doing what I have to do to help the guys that are going to Wales,”
Kolisi is not in the team to face Wales in Washinton DC, he begins his captaincy of the Boks for the England series.
The match kicks off on Saturday at 23H00 South African time.
