Seeing how far some experienced players can get with their match fitness is a big part of Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus’s remit for Saturday night’s clash with Argentina in Buenos Aires but one returning player he has no worries about is skipper Siya Kolisi.
The double World Cup-winning captain hasn’t played for the Boks since the unofficial international against the Barbarians in Gqeberha on 20 June because of injury so this will be the first time he leads the team in a test match in 2026.
He makes his return alongside stalwart locks Eben Etzebeth and Lood de Jager and if anything Erasmus is more concerned about how they might go than how his captain will go against the Pumas.
“If there is one player we have learned we never have to worry about when it comes to returning from injury it is Siya,” said Erasmus after naming a team that features 13 changes from the side that started the last Nations Championship game against Wales in Durban on 18 July.
“You will recall that in 2023 he was involved in a race against time to recover from quite a big injury (it was a similar story in 2019) and he came through that well. Because of his age he has learned how to deal with those injuries. He knows how to deal with those injuries, how to rehab and handle the pressure of getting himself back in time (for a target date).
“We know that Siya does his rehab properly and on time and he is very diligent about it. We have never been unsure when selecting Siya after a long injury layoff. He has always delivered for us when coming back and this time won’t be any different.”
He expects Kolisi to see out just more than a half as he comes back to full match fitness, with Marco van Staden primed to take over his openside flank role in the second half.
Because he played more recently than them, Erasmus is expecting Kolisi to be on the field a fraction longer than the two experienced locks Etzebeth and De Jager, both of whom have had minimal game time at any level over the course of this year.
“Ben-Jason Dixon is on the bench and he will take over from Eben and Cobus Wiese will take over from Lood. We know Eben won’t last 80 minutes, he has been out for too long, and for him it is just a case of building his match fitness capacity. The same for Lood. Cobus is a lineout caller and Ben-Jason isn’t, that is why they will make a direct swap, BJ for Eben who isn’t a lineout caller and Cobus for Lood, who is a lineout caller.”
The #Springboks team to face Argentina in Buenos Aires on Saturday has a solid look to it - more here: https://t.co/kPbxl7Gi4W 👊#ForeverGreenForeverGold pic.twitter.com/oa6A3jlixb
— Springboks (@Springboks) August 4, 2026
UTILITY VALUE OF FORWARDS MAKES IT EASIER
Erasmus is being helped out in his machinations around his two returning locks by the utility value he has at forward, with Wiese listed in the squad when it was announced as a utility forward and Dixon as a loose-forward.
The Stormers player is primarily a cover for Pieter-Steph du Toit, who did not travel to Argentina and is being saved for the All Black series, but also put in good shifts as a lock replacement during the Nations Championship games.
The stalwarts aren’t the only players in the match day 23 coming back from injury - Canan Moodie, like Etzebeth and Kolisi, was selected to play in the Nations Championship phase (against Scotland) but was forced to pull out at the 11th hour, while Ethan Hooker has also struggled with injury problems recently and will be looking to build up match fitness.
Indeed, while he did put in an excellent 80-minute shift against Scotland, a game where he shifted to inside centre in the second half and hence his inclusion as the only outside back on the bench for the Buenos Aires game, Handre Pollard was also prevented by injury from building his game time in the Durban game against Wales.
NOT EXPECTING PERFECT PERFORMANCE
With flyhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu having not played since he sustained an injury playing for the Stormers against Cardiff in their Vodacom URC quarterfinal, Erasmus has reasons to expect Saturday night’s game to be short of 100 per cent perfection from a Bok viewpoint.
Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu is buzzing to start his first game of the season for the Springboks 😁#SSRugby pic.twitter.com/SDWBF5PA8B
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) August 4, 2026
“The Pumas are always a difficult team to play against, they always have sevens players in their mix who are hard to defend against and they are very similar to us (with their approach and physicality) so because we have guys coming back from injury, we are expecting a bit of a grind,” said Erasmus in an online press conference from the team hotel in Argentina.
“This isn’t a game where we are thinking of a margin of victory, we just want to be on the winning side. There are a lot of guys coming back from injury and then there are some who are not that settled into the team because they haven’t played that much, like Elrigh (Louw) and Cameron (Hanekom). So we know it won’t be perfect and we are not expecting it to be.
“But if we get better and show signs that we are growing our game plan, we get our tactics right and our plan right and show some cohesion, then we will be happy. The winning is the most important thing and then those things. We want to grow our game and just get better in each department.”