A titanic battle is expected tomorrow at Twickenham (17:15) when the Springboks face off against England in a repeat of the 2019 World Cup final. Unfortunately, the off-field "action" has already captured the emotion of the two nations involved, to such an extent that the victory could/will be attributed to emotions rather than superior play on the field.
For England and their supporters "revenge" is the driving force as the hosts will be hell-bent on retribution for the painful 32-12 defeat at the 2019 World Cup final in Yokohama two years.
For the Springboks and their supporters, revenge for the "unfair" treatment of their Director of Rugby will be first prize. The timing of the suspension of Erasmus is seen as a final attempt to demoralise the Springboks before their final test of the 2021 season.
Victory for the Springboks over a strong England team will not only see the South Africans retain the No 1 spot on the world rankings; it would also mark their first unbeaten Castle Lager Outgoing Tour since 2013, and wrap up a successful season for the world champions with nine victories in 13 Test matches.
Both teams are high on momentum, England having won four in a row while the Springboks won three. The Springboks may have a more impressive run with victories over the All Blacks (32-29), Wales (23-18) and Scotland (30-15), however, England last weekend did what South Africa couldn’t this season and that is beat Australia. Victories against the USA (43-29), Canada (70-14) and Tonga (69-3) preceded their impressive 32-15 win tory over a weakened Wallabies team.
We expect nothing new from the Springboks, while England's ability to effectively shift the point of contact could prove to be vital. This, in theory, is imperative against a team with a pack of monsters. Looking to stretch them out wide is a far better strategy than attempting to fight fire with fire.
The experienced Courtney Lawes (flanker) will captain England for a second time. Lawes takes over from Owen Farrell, who is not available for this match after picking up an injury in England's victory over Australia last weekend.
Jamie Blamire will start at hooker, with props Bevan Rodd and Kyle Sinckler joining him in the front row. Locks Maro Itoje and Jonny Hill complete the tight five and Sam Underhill is at openside flanker.
Joe Marchant returns to the side on the right-wing, Jonny May is on the left-wing and Freddie Steward is at fullback.
As a result of Farrell's absence, Manu Tuilagi is back at inside centre, Marcus Smith is at flyhalf, and the side’s most capped player, Ben Youngs, is at scrumhalf.
Hooker Nic Dolly could make his England debut off the bench, where he will be joined by Joe Marler, Will Stuart, Charlie Ewels, Sam Simmonds, Alex Dombrandt, Raffi Quirke and Max Malins.
England head coach Eddie Jones said: “This is our biggest game of the season and the final game of the autumn campaign and we want to finish with a bang.
“We’ve been really pleased with the preparation this week and how the team has continued to develop over the past month.
“Now we want to put on our best performance this autumn in front of a capacity 82,000 crowd at Twickenham.”
Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber named Handré Pollard and Cobus Reinach in a fresh halfback pairing and recalled Lood de Jager at lock in three changes to his starting team.
Pollard (flyhalf), Reinach (scrumhalf) and De Jager were drafted into the starting lineup in rotational switches, which sees Elton Jantjies and Herschel Jantjies join Franco Mostert (utility forward) among the replacements in other changes to the match-day squad that defeated Scotland 30-15 at Murrayfield last week.
“We built up good momentum in the Tests against Wales and Scotland, and it is important for us to transfer that into our final match of the tour against England, so we opted to make only three changes to the starting team for this weekend’s clash,” said Nienaber.
“England will pose different threats to Scotland, and with that in mind, we have decided to start with Handré, Cobus and Lood.
“Elton, Herschel and Franco have shown that they can inject energy and ignite a spark on the attack off the bench, which will be handy against an English outfit that we know will be highly charged up for this match.”
Nienaber anticipated an epic battle between the teams.
“England has made it clear that they’ll come hard at us in this match, and with a few British & Irish Lions players in their midst, home ground advantage and a new record of eight wins in a row against Australia adding to their motivation this weekend, so we know it will be a hard grind,” said the Bok coach.
“That said, we will enter the match equally motivated, especially with the opportunity to retain our status as the top team in the world for a third successive season and winning all three matches in the Castle Lager Outgoing Tour for the first time in eight years being a real prospect.”
Nienaber added: “This has been arguably the most challenging season for a Springbok team yet due to the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, and to finish off the year with a victory against England would be a fantastic reward for the team.”
As with most of the northern hemisphere teams, Nienaber expected a monstrous forward battle, but he said England have the players and ability to mix things up on the day.
“England have traditionally had a strong pack of forwards and backs that can trigger action on attack, but they have a number of new players and coaches this season, who will want to make their mark, so there may be a different dynamic in their style of play,” he said.
“We’ve been doing our homework and we’ve been putting in the hard yards both on and off the field, so we need to make sure we are mentally and physically sharp on Saturday and convert the opportunities we create on attack into points because in a Test match such as this there are generally only a few of them.”
Teams:
England: 15. Freddie Steward, 14. Joe Marchant, 13. Henry Slade, 12. Manu Tuilagi, 11. Jonny May, 10. Marcus Smith, 9. Ben Youngs, 8. Tom Curry, 7. Sam Underhill, 6. Courtney Lawes (c), 5. Jonny Hill, 4. Maro Itoje, 3. Kyle Sinckler, 2. Jamie Blamire, 1. Bevan Rodd. Replacements: 16. Nic Dolly, 17. Joe Marler, 18. Will Stuart, 19. Charlie Ewels, 20. Sam Simmonds, 21. Alex Dombrandt, 22. Raffi Quirke, 23. Max Malins.
South Africa: 15. Willie le Roux, 14. Jesse Kriel, 13. Lukhanyo Am, 12. Damian de Allende, 11. Makazole Mapimpi, 10. Handré Pollard, 9. Cobus Reinach, 8. Duane Vermeulen, 7. Albertus Smith, 6. Siyamthanda Kolisi (c), 5. Lodewyk de Jager, 4. Eben Etzebeth, 3. Trevor Nyakane, 2. Mbongeni Mbonambi, 1. Retshegofaditswe Nché. Replacements: 16. Malcolm Marx, 17. Steven Kitshoff, 18. Vincent Koch, 19. Franco Mostert, 20. Jasper Wiese, 21. Herschel Jantjies, 22. Elton Jantjies, 23. Francois Steyn.