‘We’ve no doubt Ireland will be stronger’ – Rassie Erasmus names unchanged team for second Test

While Ireland are struggling with injuries having lost Dan Sheehan and Craig Casey with doubts over several others, the world champions are in an enviably strong position after a bruising first Test.

Not that the coach is expecting any less of a challenge after the 27-20 win at Loftus Versfeld.

“It’s always tough facing Ireland,” Erasmus said.

“They are a quality team, they are ranked second in the world, and as we saw last week, they never stop fighting, so we know the magnitude of the challenge that awaits us this weekend.

“We have no doubt they’ll come out even stronger this week, but we also identified the areas of the game that we need to improve on, and it’s vital for us to build on our performance in our quest to win both matches.”

It is the most experienced line-up in Springbok history.

“We don’t really look at such things when we select the team, but this shows how blessed we are with the depth in the squad and the quality of the players we have," Erasmus said.

South Africa tour daily - July 9th: Rassie Erasmus names unchanged team

“While it may be an impressive statistic, it will by no means guarantee us a victory. We know we must go out there and play good rugby for the full 80 minutes to get the desired result.”

Willie le Roux, Cheslin Kolbe and Kurt-Lee Arendse make up the back three, with Jesse Kriel and Damian de Allende in midfield and Handre Pollard retained alongside Faf de Klerk after a poor day from the tee in Pretoria.

Up front, Erasmus has opted not to rotate so Ox Nche, Bongi Mbonambi and Frans Malherbe are the front-row, Eben Etzebeth and Franco Mostert are in the second-row and captain Siya Kolisi joins Pieter Steph du Toit and Kwagga Smith in the back-row.

He’s kept the bench that made such an impact against Ireland intact.

“The replacements made a good impact when they took the field by injecting energy into the game, and we are looking for much of the same from them this week,” he said.

“We’ve been on the wrong side of the scoreboard on a few occasions too and we remember how it felt to suffer a defeat against them in the World Cup pool stages, and we have no doubt they are feeling the same this week.

Springbok team (v Ireland) in Durban

15 – Willie le Roux (Vodacom Bulls) – 94 caps, 75 pts (15t) 14 – Cheslin Kolbe (Suntory Sungoliath) – 32 caps, 96 points (15t, 3c, 5p) 13 – Jesse Kriel (Canon Eagles) – 70 caps, 80 points (16t) 12 – Damian de Allende (Wild Knights) – 80 caps, 55 points (11t) 11 – Kurt-Lee Arendse (Vodacom Bulls) - 16 caps, 70 points (14t) 10 – Handré Pollard (Leicester Tigers) – 70 caps, 708 points (7t, 98c, 154p, 5dg) 9 – Faf de Klerk (Canon Eagles) – 57 caps, 50 points (5t, 5c, 5pg)

8 – Kwagga Smith (Shizuoka Blue Revs) – 42 caps, 35 pts (7t) 7 – Pieter-Steph du Toit (Toyota Verblitz) – 79 caps, 40 points (8t) 6 – Siya Kolisi (captain, Racing 92) – 84 caps, 50 points (10t) 5 – Franco Mostert (Honda Heat) – 75 caps, 15 points (3t) 4 – Eben Etzebeth (Hollywoodbets Sharks) – 121 caps, 30 points (6t) 3 – Frans Malherbe (DHL Stormers) – 71 caps, 5 points (1t) 2 – Bongi Mbonambi (Hollywoodbets Sharks) – 70 caps, 70 points (14t) 1 – Ox Nche (Hollywoodbets Sharks) – 29 caps, 0 pts

Replacements

16 – Malcolm Marx (Kubota Spears) – 66 caps, 85 points (17t) 17 – Gerhard Steenekamp (Vodacom Bulls) – 2 caps, 0 points 18 – Vincent Koch (Hollywoodbets Sharks) – 51 caps, 0 points 19 – Salmaan Moerat (DHL Stormers) – 5 caps, 0 points 20 – RG Snyman (Leinster) – 35 caps, 10 points (2t) 21 – Marco van Staden (Vodacom Bulls) – 19 caps, 0 pts 22 – Grant Williams (Hollywoodbets Sharks) – 10 caps, 10 points (2t) 23 – Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu (DHL Stormers) – 2 caps, 7 points (2c, 1p)