Team Selection - Round 1 - Rugby Championship

South  Africa  vs  Australia

South  Africa

15  Warrick Gelant, 14  S'bu Nkosi, 13  Jesse Kriel, 12  Andre Esterhuizen, 11  Makazole Mapimpi, 10  Elton Jantjies, 9   Herschel Jantjies, 8  Francois Louw, 7  Pieter-Steph du Toit, 6  Rynhardt Elstadt, 5  Lood de Jager, 4  Eben Etzebeth (c), 3  Trevor Nyakane, 2 Bongi Mbonambi, 1  Tendai Mtawarira

Replacements  :  16  Schalk Brits, 17 Lizo Gqoboka, 18   Vincent Koch,  19 Marvin Orie,  20 Marcell Coetzee, 21  Cobus Reinach, 22  Frans Steyn, 23  Dillyn Leyds

Australia

Argentina  vs  New  Zealand

Argentina

New Zealand 

South Africa Update - thanks rooinek.

An interesting team I have problems with -

*   Louw at 8 - he was useless last year and  was central to two losses by the Springboks;

*   the non-thinking Esterhuizen at 12 - slow and a poor center;  and 

*   Elton Jantjies at flyhalf - the sight of him under pressure is not nice to see

I would have preferred Lleyds ahead of Gelant at full back.

Nice to see Elsadt at loosie - he deserves selection after a very good season with Toulouse.

And Fat fransie is on the bench - the question remains - is he worse than Esterhuizen at center, 

The props on the bench is better than the props starting.   .  

South Africa Update - thanks rooinek.

An interesting team I have problems with -

*   Louw at 8 - he was useless last year and  was central to two losses by the Springboks;

*   the non-thinking Esterhuizen at 12 - slow and a poor center;  and 

*   Elton Jantjies at flyhalf - the sight of him under pressure is not nice to see

I would have preferred Lleyds ahead of Gelant at full back.

Nice to see Elsadt at loosie - he deserves selection after a very good season with Toulouse.

And Fat fransie is on the bench - the question remains - is he worse than Esterhuizen at center, 

The props on the bench is better than the props starting.   .  

Why do you okes post the same thing twice?

DumMike posted the team.

Rooinek posted the team again.

So if this is our apparent B team... does it mean that Etzebeth is not a first choice?

Frans Steyn for president!

Best firepower at 12 for nearly ten years. Halfbacks are questionable. Jantjies' game doesn't tend to suit the Boks, as we play off our 9s. Aside from Andre and Jantjies, not may distributors. Andre will be used sparingly, and as a runner, but then so will Kriel. Where do the back three come into play? The backrow will be interesting. I haven't seen much of Elstadt. In Lood and Steph we have mobility issues on defence and attack. Not the strongest ball-carrying side we could have fielded, and that's where the Boks get their game going. Probably good enough to beat Australia. The bench could have been much worse. 

@Chippo: José Erasmus (J-Raz for the trendies) is chief parker of the tractor. He believes Damian is an x factor player. So he likes to give him as much ball as possible. Whenever he plays Damian, he gives 12 upwards of 7% of team possession. That usually results in only one wing getting any ball - which has to be kicked away or squashed along the touchline for slow ball. However, this is okay, because any momentum we gain will be lead to a kick to the corners from inside the opposition half anyway. 

Steph is an automatic opening door. This will be the Wallaby view of Steph on Saturday. P lease excuse the Damian in the video: 

@Augenöffner

I never really mentioned Damien anywhere.

What are you going on about?

My bad Chippy, misread Esterhuizen when you wrote Etzebeth flicking through my phone . 

Both Esterhuizen and Kriel love to hog the ball. Chances of the wings seeing any action is highly unlikely. The Ozzies are going to exploit their channels and should hopefully score a few under the posts. Kerevi and Kuridrane must be chomping at the bit.

Elton will undoubtedly take the good ball he receives from Herschelle and kick it aimlessly away. We can be thankful the Ozzies fired Folau.

Frans Steyn will try to impress the world by attempting a drop from his own 22. That should be good for a laugh.

I am keen to see how Reinach and Coetzee play. It's been an age since they played on a hard, fast field.

So many new untested combinations. It's Rassie's second season and still the man remains clueless who his A and B teams are. I wonder how many more "experiments" we'll see?

Let's all hope the wheels fall off.   

Go Wallabies!!!!

Pinky La Femme has a shorter memory than the fuse (not to be confused with penis) of Rump. Andre shutdown Australia's attack last year. 

Yeah ... and pigs fly!!

Mozart - not to worry

Erasmus  made 4 dubious picks because he wanted to see whether the four can at least up their game and based on performance.   If the four fails again  they will be out of contention.      Meyer made pics of players based on reputation with total disregard to performance.    

Mozart - not to worry

Erasmus  made 4 dubious picks because he wanted to see whether the four can at least up their game and based on performance.   If the four fails again  they will be out of contention.      Meyer made pics of players based on reputation with total disregard to performance.    

"Meyer made pics of players based on reputation with total disregard to performance."

I bet if we isolate that phrase on Google we'd bring up 42,000 hits. 

Chippo

I put the format on site - but Rooinek found the team and posted same.   I then put the team within the format,  

Chippo

I put the format on site - but Rooinek found the team and posted same.   I then put the team within the format,  

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Comment: Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer

Cape Town - The good thing about the experimental Springbok team named on Wednesday for their opening Test of the 2019 season is that it boasts a strong enough spine to potentially still get the job done against Australia in Johannesburg on Saturday (17:05).

In that respect, it looks a lot less vulnerable than the equivalent Bok line-up last year, when they began the Rassie Erasmus head-coaching tenure with a disappointing 22-20 defeat to Wales on a slippery surface in Washington DC - albeit a match which drew a modest expatriate crowd and barely deserved Test status.

That side was particularly fragile in terms of both rawness of combinations and staffing as a whole, whereas the one revealed for this Rugby Championship opener much closer to home, at oft-favoured venue of Ellis Park, is less marked by greenhorns - only two debutants in scrumhalf Herschel Jantjies and flanker Rynhardt Elstadt - and handily features some of the most streetwise current Boks imaginable, including Tendai Mtawarira and acting captain Eben Etzebeth.

In senior figures like those, lies rich potential for more callow members of the team to rally behind and feel less intimidated by the task against the Wallabies.

That is despite mastermind Erasmus sticking to his already-stated intention to cocoon around 15 senior players, sending them instead across the Indian Ocean in altogether more decent time to prepare for the challenge of the world-champion All Blacks just one week further ahead.

So a comeuppance for this Saturday's more hastily assembled outfit wouldn’t be the end of the world even if victory would be an infinitely more pleasing outcome, simultaneously confirming a solid assembly of genuine depth in World Cup year.

A lot of the starting XV at very least know their team-mates' playing styles, strengths and weaknesses pretty well from regular, extended squad involvement with the national cause: there are hardly any "kids" in this particular team.

Even the first-cap Elstadt, 29, shouldn't have a rabbit-in-headlights look about him on Saturday as he was a tough-as-teak customer for the Stormers for several seasons before picking up further wisdom abroad with his clearly successful switch to Toulouse in 2017.

The side even includes one combination who began that debatable Washington DC exercise a year ago, the midfield duo of Andre Esterhuizen and Jesse Kriel, both of whom should be on a mission to pressure as much as possible the likely first-choice alliance in the early part of the Test campaign, Damian de Allende and Lukhanyo Am.

Certainly on paper, this Bok pack contains enough known oomph to be able to repel a Wallaby charge at a ground that has been unkind to the visitors for several decades.

Of greater concern, maybe, will be its ability to last the pace despite the obvious - though slightly over-rated, nowadays? - advantages of playing at high altitude.

Several players selected have had unsatisfactorily little rugby in recent weeks and suddenly starting a Test against traditionally frontline foes, especially if the Aussies give it the kitchen sink, is no easy ask.

The phenomenon applies in the tight five, for instance, to Mtawarira, who sat out substantial tracts of Super Rugby for the Sharks through injury, as well as both locks, Etzebeth and Lood de Jager, despite their glowing reputations.

Stormers hard man Etzebeth had another very disrupted (and his final) season for the Cape franchise, while De Jager had been absent from the Bulls' plans for months until resurfacing for 50 minutes of a Currie Cup match against Western Province at Newlands just last Saturday - even if he came through quite well.

As much as the balance of the loose trio - featuring Francois Louw at his slightly less familiar No 8 and Elstadt and another recently-rehabbed customer in Pieter-Steph du Toit on the sides of the scrum - will come under sharp scrutiny, keep in mind that the two Euro-based players in it also come out of a few weeks of the off-season in northern climes.

Several of the bench elements (Cobus Reinach, Frans Steyn, Marcell Coetzee and Vincent Koch) are in the same boat, although their tasks should be less lung-busting if, for instance, they are only required to give it a healthy tonk for some 20 minutes or fewer after the break ...

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