Ja well no wine: rugby supporters pour into Bordeaux as Boks meet Romania

Thousands of rugby fans have poured into France's revered wine region for South Africa's Rugby World Cup pool B clash against Romania at Stade de Bordeaux on Sunday.

They have joined enthusiastic supporters of Samoa and Chile who on Saturday saw their teams meet in a pool D game in the first of the weekend's double header matches in this city of stunning architecture and epicurean excellence.

Indeed, restaurants and bars were packed on Saturday as locals and travelling rugby fans created a carnival-like atmosphere in the city.

On the northern outskirts of the city at Matmut Atlantique, or Stade de Bordeaux after World Rugby sanitised its identity, Chile, who are making their World Cup debut at this tournament, suffered a 43-10 defeat at the hands of Samoa on Saturday. Fans afterwards streamed back into the city and populated the many eating and drinking establishments on the banks of the river Garonne.

Attention, however, will shift to the Springboks and Romania on Sunday as the teams clash for the first time since the 1995 World Cup. When they last met at Newlands 28 years ago the Springboks delivered an uninspiring performance before winning 21-8.

They, of course, back then had made sweeping changes to their team after their stunning opening-day win over defending champions Australia at the same ground.

The men in charge of the Class of '23 have followed a similar route in selection after the Boks beat Scotland in their opening match in Marseille last weekend.

The Boks on display on Sunday in the 42,000-seater stadium will hope to impress and play themselves into contention for next Saturday's crunch clash against Ireland in Paris.

The match will kick off at 3pm with rain predicted for the Bordeaux area. The Boks, however, have trained for that eventuality and have practised with balls that were soaked in soapy water, which was also the case in their base Toulon as they prepared for the greasy conditions brought about by the humidity in Provence.

The Boks will hope to put behind them a testing week in which injuries to lock Eben Etzebeth and hooker Malcolm Marx cast a shadow over those players' long-term prospects in this tournament.

Etzebeth is on the path to recovery from a shoulder injury suffered against Scotland but Marx's tournament is over after he sustained a freakish anterior cruciate ligament injury in training.

The Springboks' management will decide after Sunday's match on a replacement for Marx but flyhalf Handré Pollard appears to occupy the inside lane for a return to the side.