Moodie’s big move to centre for Boks: ‘We are comfortable with him there’

Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber sprung a surprise on Monday when he named rising star wing Canan Moodie at outside centre for their final World Cup warm-up match against the All Blacks at Twickenham on Friday night.

Moodie has been in sensational form on the wing for the Boks, picking up man-of-the-match awards in the team’s past two games against Wales and Argentina, and he will now get a chance to show what he can do in the midfield.

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“From the outside it might look like an interesting decision, but for us Canan has always been a back-up there (at 13),” explained Nienaber.

“We obviously have options in the position. Jesse (Kriel) is currently playing there and is in form, we can move Damian (de Allende) out to 13, which we have done before, and unfortunately Lukhanyo (Am) is still injured and probably two weeks away from being fully fit.

“So with that in mind we have been training Canan in the position as a back-up, we are comfortable playing him there and it will be a nice challenge for him playing against a quality (All Blacks) centre combination on the weekend.”

He partners up with Andre Esterhuizen for the first time and they will both be looking to impress against the Boks’ biggest rivals on Friday.

“With Andre I thought the couple of games he has played for us (this season) have been good. He is in the squad and it’s just a bit of rotation between him and Damian (de Allende),” said Nienaber.

Backline shakeup

Looking at the rest of the side for the All Blacks match, the Boks have almost completely shaken up their backline for the match in London.

Flyhalf Manie Libbok and Moodie are the only survivors from the past weekend’s match against Wales in the starting line-up, as Faf de Klerk comes in at scrumhalf and an entirely new back three sees Makazole Mapimpi, Kurt-Lee Arendse and Damian Willemse link up.

The Boks will, however, have a lot of continuity in their forward pack as 14 of the forwards that were in the match 23 against Wales, 12 have been retained.

“If you look at the backs I would say it might be a bit experimental. But if you look at the forwards there is good continuity as we have 14 forwards in the match 23 and 12 of them played against Wales. It’s only Trevor (Nyakane) and Eben (Etzebeth) who have come in,” said Nienaber.

“In the backs it’s just under 50% that played last weekend that we have retained and there are a few new combinations. We have four nines (in the World Cup squad) so we have gone with a new nine combination in Faf (starting) and Cobus (Reinach, on the bench).

“The centre combination we have already spoken about. Then with our outside backs, if you look at their recent performances we have a quality group so we just wanted to spread the load with them.”