Thursday 13 November 2014 10:42, UK
South Africa have revamped their team to face England on Saturday at Twickenham after their heavy 29-15 defeat to Ireland.
Head coach Heyneke Meyer makes five changes to his starting line-up, recalling 2007 World Cup winners JP Pietersen and Schalk Burger.
Pietersen will start on the right wing and Burger at openside flanker, while Pat Lambie gets the nod at No 10 ahead of highly-rated fly-half Handre Pollard and Cobus Reinach comes in at scrum-half, in a new half-back pairing, in place of Francois Hougaard.
The fifth and final adjustment to the starting XV beaten by Ireland in Dublin will see Adriaan Strauss start at hooker.
“We’ve accepted our performance against Ireland last weekend was not up to scratch and everyone in the touring squad has put up their hands and dug deep this week,” said Meyer.
“We’ve really worked hard at fixing the mistakes we made and the challenge is now to put that into action on Saturday."
Meyer has retained the same match-day 23 selected for last Saturday's tour opener at the Aviva Stadium with Cornal Hendricks, Pollard, Hougaard, Teboho Mohoje and Bismarck du Plessis dropping to the bench.
He added: “Pat started at Twickenham for us two years ago and did very well. He’s playing well at the moment and I wanted to give him the opportunity to start. Pat is tactically very astute and even though he’s still pretty young, he’s got a lot of experience.
“Adriaan, Schalk and JP have all started a number of Tests this year and they will slot in easily – we decided beforehand that we wanted to start all of these players in one of the first two Tests on tour.
“It’s a big occasion for Cobus but he would not have been here if we didn’t believe he could deliver the goods, and he’ll be next to his provincial team-mate in Pat.
“As usual, we’re also expecting our replacements to raise the intensity when they’re sent on and Bismarck, who had a very good game in Dublin especially in the set-pieces, ‘Oupa’, Francois, Cornal and Handré will provide important cover off the bench.”
South Africa: 15 Willie le Roux, 14 JP Pietersen, 13 Jan Serfontein, 12 Jean de Villiers (capt), 11 Bryan Habana, 10 Pat Lambie, 9 Cobus Reinach; 1 Tendai Mtawarira, 2 Adriaan Strauss, 3 Jannie du Plessis, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 5 Victor Matfield, 6 Marcell Coetzee, 7 Schalk Burger, 8 Duane Vermeulen.
Replacements: 16 Bismarck du Plessis, 17 Trevor Nyakane, 18 Coenie Oosthuizen, 19 Bakkies Botha, 20 Teboho Mohoje, 21 Francois Hougaard, 22 Handre Pollard, 23 Cornal Hendricks.
Watch England v South Africa on Sky Sports 1HD from 2.00pm on Saturday
