Rassie to ring the changes for first Test against Italy

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus is expected to ring the changes for the first Test of the incoming series against Italy in Pretoria this weekend as he aims to spread game time across the whole squad over the coming weeks.

The Boks got their season off to a cracking start with a 54-7 thumping of the Barbarians in their one-off non-Test in Cape Town on Saturday, and now turn their attention to their next three games against Italy and Georgia.

Heading into the Baabaas match the Boks only made part of their squad available, leaving out most of the players who featured in various franchise finals late in the club season.

But they will now have the full group of 46 players available for the incoming series, and might possibly even add a few extra players to the group for their last game against Georgia in Mbombela.

Speaking after the Baabaas romp, Erasmus explained that the players who will be facing Italy in the matches in Pretoria and Gqeberha already knew the team lineups.

“The guys will know tomorrow (Sunday) night who’s playing Italy ‘one’ and ‘two’. They’ve got a fairly good idea already. The guys who played the Barbarians knew two weeks ago, so they had two weeks of training together,” said Erasmus.

“That’s always a little bit of a caveat. If things don’t go according to plan, Italy ‘two’ can always change. But we do know who the core of the team will be. So we definitely know who’s in the mix for Italy ‘one’.”

Japan players

The Japan-based players are expected to get some more game time, while senior players like captain Siya Kolisi, who was pulled out of the Baabaas game with a stiff neck on Friday, Eben Etzebeth, Bongi Mbonambi, Handre Pollard and Willie le Roux could all be in line to play this weekend.

It will be interesting to see if any the four uncapped players who featured against the Baabaas, namely Vincent Tshituka, Asenathi Ntlabakanye, Neethling Fouche and Marnus van der Merwe, will receive their official first caps, while the Bulls players, such as Wilco Louw and Ruan Nortje, and Thomas du Toit (Bath) will also be in the mix.

Erasmus also confirmed that star loose forward Pieter-Steph du Toit, who has been out injured since undergoing shoulder surgery in November last year, would likely be available for selection for the second Italian game.

“We won’t get carried away with this performance (against the Baabaas). Certainly some guys showed us that they can do it at this level, but we’ll layer them in to make sure there’s a balance,” explained Erasmus.

“I think guys like Damian (de Allende), Jesse (Kriel) are a bit undercooked. Kurt-Lee (Arendse) hasn’t really played in a lot of matches either in Japan and didn’t come back to the Bulls.

“So we’ll try to strike a balance so that when we’re done with Georgia, we’ve got a group of 45 or 50 (players) that got some game time.”