After a couple of days off, the Springboks regrouped on Sunday to begin preparing for the back-to-back Test matches against the Wallabies in Johannesburg on Saturday 16 August and Cape Town on 23 August to start the Rugby Championship.
There will be great excitement and anticipation for the first team announcement considering that it will provide some genuine insight into the thinking of Rassie Erasmus after plenty of experimenting with selection during the July internationals.
Especially after seeing the Wallabies’ competitive performances against the British & Irish Lions, Erasmus will surely be planning to bring a number of first-choice players and combinations into the mix for the first Test against Australia.
It’s expected that the first Springbok team of the Rugby Championship will be named on Tuesday, 12 August, with the exact time still to be confirmed.
Springboks have been working hard in camp
A recent training camp featured a series of gym and field training sessions, as well as boardroom sessions, and Erasmus said they will delve deeper into the opposition from this week.
“We have laid a good foundation, and next week we will zone more into what we expect from Australia and start developing plans to counter what we expect from them,” he said.
“They showed against the British & Irish Lions what they are capable of, so we need to be ready mentally and physically for what they will throw at us in South Africa.”
The matches against Australia will be followed by successive Tests against the All Blacks in Auckland and Wellington (on 6 and 13 September) and Los Pumas in Durban and London (on 27 September and 4 October).
“We had an intense week of conditioning to get the players ready for what will undoubtedly be a challenging Rugby Championship campaign against some of the top teams in the world,” Erasmus added.
“So we are pleased with the strides made and the mind-shift the players made for what will be a completely different contest against Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina.
“We identified a few key areas of our game that we felt we needed to improve on after the Incoming Series, and we incorporated those areas into our training and conditioning blocks this week.
“The teams we will face in the next few months will ask different questions and pose different challenges, so it was important for the group to align on what to expect in the next few weeks, so this camp was vital in ensuring that we prepare adequately for what lies ahead.”
WHAT ARE YOUR PREDICTIONS FOR THIS TEAM SELECTION?
Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 0211.
Subscribe to The South African website’s newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.
