When Saturday’s game arrives at the FNB Stadium the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series will be three matches in and yet there have been no signs of the attrition rate that had Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus predicting beforehand that both teams might be down six players.
Indeed, it might be an oversight on the part of us media people that to this point none of us have asked Erasmus how much his own selection plans might have been changed by the defeat his team suffered in the first test in Johannesburg to an All Black team that has improved under the coaching of Dave Rennie from the side that faced the Boks under Scott Robertson last year.
For if you go back to the eve of the series kick-off, Erasmus’ plans do appear to have changed. He was saying then that he was selecting for a series and hinted that there would be changes for the second test in Cape Town geared towards ensuring he’d have his top team on a keen edge for what he predicted would be the decider at Soccer City.
He actually said the third or fourth test, and whatever happens, the series will still be alive when the two teams fly to Baltimore next week, with the team that loses on Saturday playing to get a share of the new RGR trophy and the winner playing to annex it completely.
TWO FACTORS FAVOURED ROTATION OF SELECTION
There were two factors favouring changes in selection from Erasmus - firstly, there was a perception that the Boks have a deeper squad and that would favour them in the later games, and secondly Erasmus did speak about the lesson he learned in the 2023 Paris World Cup semifinal against England where he felt his team were hungover from their massive effort in the quarterfinal win over France.
Back then he was backing up from a Sunday to a Saturday, meaning just a six day turnaround, whereas there has been a full seven day week between these tests. But it appears another ancillary point of this series might have subverted - Erasmus always has one eye on the next World Cup, and four tests in four weeks against each other does give the two best teams in the world a massive leg up for next year.
Both of them are doing a dry run for what they will face in Australia from the newly introduced round of 16 onwards, meaning four knockout games in four weeks. These RGR games haven’t been knock-out games but they have felt like knock-out games such is the intensity and desperation to win that has been taken into each.
RGR IS MUCH TOUGHER THAN RWC KNOCK-OUT PHASE
In fact, because of the quality of the two teams, what they are doing now is much tougher than what they will be doing in the RWC knock-outs in Australia - meaning for the team that gets through a likely quarterfinal between the RGR adversaries.
Such is the weakness of the World Cup draw that two successive games against either the All Blacks/Boks and France, who belong in the top three, will be followed by a final against a much weaker opponent. And the round of 16 game will be against a much weaker opponent too.
Given that his best team is dominated by players over 30, and in one case pushing 40, this series might have been the ideal opportunity for Erasmus to subject the potential next wave of players, those who’d be called on in the World Cup if some of the current first choices go over the hill between now and next October, to a proper litmus test under RWC play-off type pressure.
It might still happen in the final game of the series in Baltimore, and Erasmus hinted at a mix up of selection for that game when he said at his team announcement press conference on Monday that by the end of the RGR he will only have four players in his currently more than 40 man squad who would not have had some game time. He’s used 30 different players thus far.
Then there’s the less pressure loaded game against Australia that will come just a fortnight after the Baltimore game, with the Boks heading straight to Australia from the USA for that game. Players not used in the RGR will presumably get a chance then.
LOW WORK LOAD MAKES BACKING UP MORE LOGICAL
There is a perfectly logical explanation, built around circumstance, that could explain why Erasmus has been prepared to back up the team that physically dominated the first two tests, even though they lost the first.
It is reasoning split into two angles - firstly, it was clear at Ellis Park that the Boks suffered for the lack of cohesion that came from not having played together since the first Nations Championship test against England on 4 July. Had there been just a bit more continuity in selection before the first RGR test, the Boks would be 2-0 up now rather than the sides locked together at 1-all.
The side looked like it needed bedding in and the benefits of that policy were clear for all to see with a much more clinical and accurate performance in Cape Town. Then, and perhaps this is the most important point of all, there is the game time that the players who will be fronting for three Saturdays in a row took into the series.
Erasmus made the point that his team still boasts 60 less playing minutes per man than the All Blacks, who have mostly played relatively unchanged in the five test matches they have played since Rennie took over, with most of them also playing at least one tour game before the first test.
Take a look at the team that lines up for South Africa on Saturday and you do not see a team that has been overplayed - Eben Etzebeth, who is getting progressively better the more he plays, played only one club game between the last international of last year against Wales and his first game of 2026 against Argentina two weeks before the first RGR test.
The other more experienced lock in the group, Lood de Jager, has also hardly played since last November, and anyway he didn’t feature in the first RGR match day squad because Erasmus said he was getting him up to muster. He came on in the last quarter of the game in Cape Town and is a reserve again.
COMING BACK FROM INJURY LAY-OFFS
Ox Nche did not play after his eighth minute injury against England until the Ellis Park test, while alongside him the other front row men Malcolm Marx and Wilco Louw were also used sparingly during the Nations Championship games. So for that matter was Thomas du Toit, who ended up starting last week after being left out of the first test squad.
Skipper Siya Kolisi was out injured for the entire home leg of the Nations Championship and missed the first RGR test and Jasper Wiese has also handed his No 8 jersey to other players for specific test matches.
Flyhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu is three games into his comeback from injury and there was a vast improvement in his play in Cape Town, and while the centres Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel have played quite a few games in the 2026 international season, there was a lot of rotation in back three players before the RGR kicked off.
All of this may lessen the risk of a team that backs up over several successive weeks playing itself to a standstill.