Jacques van der Westhuyzen

By Jacques van der Westhuyzen

Head of Sport


Kolisi to reach milestone, Boks out to avoid fourth straight defeat

There's plenty on the line when the Boks and All Blacks meet again in the Gold Coast this weekend.


The Springboks will be going all out to avoid a fourth straight Test defeat when they face the All Blacks in the 101st meeting between the teams in the Gold Coast on Saturday, with kick-off at 9.05am SA time.

The Boks go into Saturday’s final Rugby Championship Test having lost twice to the Wallabies (28-26 and 30-17) and once to the All Blacks (19-17) in the last month, in Australia.

The last time the Boks lost four Tests in a row was at the end of 2016, when Allister Coetzee was in charge of the Boks.

On 8 October 2016 the All Blacks beat the Boks 57-15 in Durban and just a few weeks later on their end-of-year tour they also fell to England 37-21 in London, Italy 20-18 in Florence and Wales 27-13 in Cardiff.

ALSO READ: Nche, Wiese back in Bok fold for All Blacks rematch

Here then are some of the best facts and stats ahead of Saturday’s meeting in Gold Coast:

Statistics:

  • Sbu Nkosi, Bongi Mbonambi and Malcolm Marx need one more try to get to take their Test tally to 10 tries and 50 points.
  • This encounter will be Siya Kolisi’s 30th Test match as captain, surpassing Francois Pienaar to become the fourth most capped Springbok captain behind John Smit (83), Jean de Villiers (37), and Gary Teichmann (36).
  • Frans Steyn needs to score nine more points to earn 150 Test points.

Miscellaneous:

  • The total Test caps for the Springbok starting line-up this weekend is 647.
  • There are 272 caps in the backline with 375 caps amongst the forwards. On the bench there are a further 305 caps.
  • The average caps per player in the backline are 38 the forwards 46 while the players on the bench average 38.

This video is no longer available.

For more news your way

Download our app and read this and other great stories on the move. Available for Android and iOS.