SOUTH AFRICA HAVE made five changes to their team to face France this weekend in the Autumn Nations Series, South African Rugby announced on Tuesday.
Willie Le Roux comes in at fullback with Makazole Mapimpi moving to the bench as the back-three is re-shuffled from last Saturday’s 19-16 loss to Ireland in Dublin.
Scrum-half Faf de Klerk, lock Franco Mostert, hooker Bongi Mbonambi and loosehead prop Ox Nche are the other new faces for the Rugby World Cup holders for the game in Marseille on Saturday.
Stormers back Manie Libbok is in line to make his Test debut off the bench.
“One of the changes was injury enforced as Lood suffered a shoulder injury against Ireland, while we opted to make a few tactical personnel changes for the challenge that we expect France to pose,” said head coach, Jacques Nienaber.
“A guy like Cobus will also bring a different dimension to our attack, and it a bonus that he knows the conditions in France and has also played with some of their players.
#Springboks team tweaked for @FranceRugby Test, with the uncapped Manie Libbok named on the bench - more here: https://t.co/FgHkR6sB3b 🇿🇦#StrongerTogether #StrongerForever #FRAvRSA pic.twitter.com/F4LBbQMql3
— Springboks (@Springboks) November 8, 2022
“Manie, meanwhile, has showed his big match temperament in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship and he has been training well since joining the team, so if he gets a run, it will be a great occasion to make his Test debut. It is going to be a challenging game, but it doesn’t get better than playing against the second ranked team in the world on your debut.
“France have showed in the last year what a force they can be, and they come off a morale-boosting victory against Australia, so we know what we are in for.
“Facing France, who are ranked second in the world, on their home patch at what we expect will be a full stadium is great preparation for next year, as the players will experience first-hand what they are in for.
“They have a good pack of forwards who pride themselves on their set pieces and talented backs who can spark something from nothing, so they will test us all around.
“That said, we know what our players are capable of, and if we had capitalised on more of our opportunities against Ireland we could have been on the right end of the scoreboard. The reality is that we lost against the best team in the world at home in front of a capacity crowd by three points.
“We’ve spoken about what went wrong last week and we are working hard on rectifying those areas so that we can we play our potential and make the nation proud this weekend.”
South Africa (v France):
15. Willie Le Roux
14. Cheslin Kolbe
13. Jesse Kriel
12. Damian de Allende
11. Kurt-Lee Arendse
10. Damian Willemse
9. Faf de Klerk
1. Ox Nche
2. Bongi Mbonambi
3. Frans Malherbe
4. Eben Etzebeth
5. Franco Mostert
6. Siya Kolisi (capt)
7. Pieter-Steph du Toit
8. Jasper Wiese
Replacements:
16. Malcolm Marx
17. Steve Kitshoff
18. Vincent Koch
19. Marvin Orie
20. Kwagga Smith
21. Cobus Reinach
22. Manie Libbok
23. Makazole Mapimpi
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