Both the Springboks and All Blacks match-day squad were announced on Thursday morning.
Both match 23s featured the traditional five forwards and three backs’ substitutes’ bench, and both coaches spoke with reverence about the contest and the history of the occasion. It was all so civil.
All Blacks coach Scott Robertson spoke of how close his team was to victory at Ellis Park and Boks coach Rassie Erasmus described the All Blacks as unlucky not to have left Johannesburg with a win.
Robertson spoke of the quality of player and coaching depth in the Springbok squad. Erasmus an hour later spoke of the greatness of All Blacks rugby, the threat of any All Blacks team and the regard the South African players and coaches have for the Haka and for the New Zealand players and coaches.
Compliments were at a premium and the clickbait sound bites were absent.
Robertson made it clear he had picked the best available 23 to get a result in the first-ever Test played between the Springboks and All Blacks at the DHL Stadium in Cape Town.
Erasmus, who has used several of this season’s Tests to grow squad playing experience, described his match 23 selection as one made to win the Test and set the squad up to win the Rugby Championship.
[Boks] were favourites to win in Australia, and they did. They were favourites to win at Ellis Park, and they did.
The Boks, unbeaten in three tournament Tests, have 14 league points and victory over the All Blacks in Cape Town would be akin to a title-winning result.
The All Blacks, having introduced a couple of youngsters in the run-on XV, reshuffled the back three, tweaked the loose-trio and defined impact roles for the experienced backs Beauden Barrett and TJ Perenara, are wanting to evolve on what was started in Robertson’s first Test of the year against England.
Erasmus, in making limited changes to the squad that won at Ellis Park, has tasked back-to-back World Cup-winning flyhalf Handré Pollard with the No 10 jersey and entrusted fit-again Bulls utility back Canan Moodie with Kurt-Lee Arendse’s No 11 jersey. Arendse is unavailable because of concussion.
For the rest, it is mostly the same, and inspirational captain Siya Kolisi, despite a fractured nose, will start and lead the team out as the Boks go in search of more rugby history. No Springbok team has beaten the All Blacks four Tests in succession in the professional era. A Bok win on Saturday would be record-breaking.
Erasmus explained the decision to pick three backline players as one made to counter the potency of the All Black backs, as a collective and as individuals.
Where Erasmus has been certain, is in not tampering with his starting forwards and with those substitutes who will finish the game.
The introduction of the bench players may be different, in that it may not be five forwards in one go, and it could be more measured specific to the flow of the match or the demands of the contest.
Expect more of a drizzle than a storm with how Erasmus uses the bench.
Last Saturday’s biggest differentiator was the power of the Boks substitutes and the six forwards and two backs split.
The All Blacks were exceptional for an hour, but in the final quarter the visiting replacements were markedly inferior to the Bok replacements.
The Springboks, 2019 and 2023 World Cup winners and 2021 British & Irish series winners, this season added a historic first-ever series win against the Wallabies in Australia to the roll of honour.
They were favourites to win in Australia, and they did. They were favourites to win at Ellis Park, and they did. They were also favourites to beat Ireland twice in succession, but they were beaten by two magical drop goals in the final three minutes of the second Test in Durban.
It took something remarkable from the Irish, in individual brilliance, to beat the Springboks, and Erasmus knows that there is a different kind of individual opportunism among the New Zealanders. They have players gifted with enough skill and rugby pedigree to conjure up the impossible.
But they also have enough vulnerability among their replacements for Saturday to be a repeat of Ellis Park, where the replacement Springboks forwards were just too powerful and too strong in the final quarter.
Erasmus knows this and so does Robertson. If both teams play to their potential, then South Africa wins.
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