South Africa coach Heyneke Meyer on Wednesday brought back big guns such as Willie le Roux and Duane Vermeulen to tackle Samoa in the World Cup on Saturday in eight changes to the team stunned by Japan.
Despite being criticised for the age of the side that lost 34-32 to Japan last Saturday, Meyer has named an even more experienced line-up with a new record 891 caps between them for the Samoa Pool B game in Birmingham.
“The last few days have been a time for retrospection and the team this week has been selected specifically with Samoa in mind, as we know we’ll have to be at our very best to succeed,” Meyer said.
The team is: 1-Tendai Mtawarira, 2-Adriaan Strauss, 3-Jannie du Plessis, 4-Eben Etzebeth, 5-Victor Matfield, 6-Francois Louw, 7-Schalk Burger, 8-Duane Vermeulen, 9- Fourie du Preez, 10-Handre Pollard, 11-Bryan Habana, 12-Damian de Allende, 13- Jean de Villiers (captain), 14-JP Pietersen, 15-Willie le Roux.
Replacements: 16-Schalk Brits, 17-Trevor Nyakane, 18-Frans Malherbe, 19-Lood de Jager, 20-Siya Kolisi, 21-Ruan Pienaar, 22-Pat Lambie, 23-Jesse Kriel.
-Sports Reporter
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