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Rassie Erasmus makes ‘different’ Springboks team admission and explains Handre Pollard selection Rassie Erasmus admits that he hasn’t selected the team that he would have liked to for the second Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry Test match in Cape Town. South Africa head into the match trailing 1-0 in the series and in reaction to the defeat at Ellis Park, the head coach has made several changes to his matchday 23. He admits that he got his bench and use of the replacements wrong in Johannesburg and that is reflected in the changes to the eight with Deon Fourie, Thomas du Toit, Lood de Jager, Cameron Hanekom and Morne van der Berg included while Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu falls out of the starting line. Cheslin Kolbe and Grant Williams have also been ruled out through injury for the encounter, with Ethan Hooker and Cobus Reinach taking their places, respectively. The change at fly-half is a notable one, with Erasmus following the same trend as he did last year, handing Handre Pollard the Springboks‘ playmaking duties in Cape Town after a defeat to Australia at Ellis Park. Injuries and result influence Springboks’ selection While he has followed the trend, Erasmus says that it wasn’t a pre-planned selection and admits that he wanted to make changes from Test one to Test two; his hand has been forced in some departments and the current team isn’t quite what he would have picked. “To be honest with you, we had a little bit of a different team in mind, we hoped we could win the first Test match and we wanted to try some things,” he told reporters after naming his team on Monday. “We hoped that Canan [Moodie] would be fit. I would have loved to play Cheslin again – he has only played 80 minutes for us prior to this. It’s been taxing for him because he’s a small guy who plays really physically for his size. We wanted him really fresh, and then unfortunately he and Grant got injured. So there are a couple of changes that we wouldn’t have made and others that we wanted to make, but because of our injury situation and because we didn’t get winning momentum, it’s tough to make more changes. “I mean, there are six changes already; I would say three are injury-forced.” Rassie Erasmus “feels bad for Manie Libbok” and explains Handre Pollard selection Pressed on the selection of Pollard in the number 10 jersey in particular, Erasmus explained that the wet conditions suit the experienced playmaker, who grew up in the Western Cape. As mentioned above, the inclusion of the 32-year-old means that Feinberg-Mngomezulu drops to the bench with Manie Libbok falling out of the matchday 23 entirely. The head coach hinted that Pollard’s placekicking also factored into the change with Kolbe ruled out of the encounter, particularly after he admits to making mistakes with his instructions from the coaching box at Ellis Park. “Because it’s Cape Town and it’s probably gonna be wet. Again, I think we played stupid, and a lot of the messages came from me at the top. Two points is three points is two less than five. We were 16-13 under the poles, third scrum and we’re not sure the ref will reward us then we make a mistake – we could have kicked the kick over,” he explained. “People ask a lot of questions: why is this guy not kicking, and why is this guy kicking? When we see at training that one guy is kicking better than the other guy, then we let that guy kick because he is on form or that skill set where he’s currently kicking well, and Cheslin didn’t miss a kick. “Now with Cheslin out, I think it’s going to be a wet-ish week. We are only flying up on Wednesday, and I see the weather conditions there is the chance of rain. And yes, Handre has always been the guy who does it for us. He grew up there; it’s his hometown, and it’s the same for Manie. “I feel bad for Manie, but we know he is still going to play in the next three matches after this one. So yeah, we think Handre is a good fit for that.” Rassie Erasmus: ‘I will say it as it is, the Bomb Squad experiment backfired’ Deon Fourie’s return The clash in Cape Town will also see one of the city’s favourite sons mark his return to the Green and Gold jersey, with Fourie becoming the oldest-ever Springbok. Erasmus explained that the veteran forward, who last played at the 2023 World Cup, was never off the Springboks’ radar despite his unfortunate run of injuries. He added that he isn’t concerned about the lack of game time the 39-year-old has under his belt. “On my laptop we’ve got the squad, and we’ve got the standby guys – likes of Evan Roos and Embrose Papier – but we always have this other column where it is guys like Frans Malherbe and Deon Fourie. If Frans plays again in January, I’m pretty sure we will have his number again,” he said. Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for world-class coverage you can trust. “Obviously Deon played well for the Stormers. He’s not match fit, he hasn’t played a lot of matches, but I have coached him since he was 18… he covers hooker, can go to openside as well. If Siya plays, he can move there later, and then Andre Esterhuizen can maybe go to the backline again. So it gives us a little bit more options, gives us more leadership and calmness. So he was always in that bracket where, listen, boys, when we sometimes have to push the emergency button, he’s one of those players.”