South Africa recall many of their Lions series stars for Argentina clash on Saturday

South Africa have reverted to something close to a full-strength side for their second Rugby Championship clash with Argentina in Nelson Mandela Bay on Saturday.

The Springboks beat Argentina 32-12 in their competition opener at the same venue this past weekend with a much-changed team.

However, they have restored their regular backline with the return of fly-half Handre Pollard, wings Cheslin Kolbe and Makazole Mapimpi, and the centre pairing of Lukhanyo Am and Damian de Allende.

Props Thomas du Toit and Trevor Nyakane will partner hooker Malcolm Marx in the front row, with Marvin Orie making his debut alongside Lood de Jager.

Captain Siya Kolisi, Franco Mostert and number eight Jasper Wiese make up the loose-forwards.

The line-up is similar to the one that played the third Test against the British & Irish Lions and clinched the series.

On the bench, Nienaber has reverted back to his tried and tested six-two split of forwards with uncapped lock Nicolaas Janse van Rensburg set to make his debut.

“A few players didn’t play last week after a physically demanding Lions series and are now back in the mix, while we also wanted to give a few players who have worked hard at training over the last two months a chance to get some valuable game time,” said bok coach Jacques Nienaber.

“This is a long season, so we need to get the balance right between building consistency in selection and in our performances, managing the players in terms of their workload, and building depth within our squad.”

“Argentina will come hard at us, so we know we need to perform much better than last week to get the desired result,” Nienaber said.

“While we were pleased with the victory and to start our Rugby Championship campaign on a winning note, there was a lot of room for improvement in our performance.

“We’ve identified a few areas we need to work on if we want to defend our title successfully, and we will work on those aspects of our game at training this week.”

After this weekend, both sides will travel on the same chartered flight to Australasia for the remainder of the competition.

They will play two fixtures each against Australia and New Zealand.

South Africa: 15 Willie le Roux, 14 Cheslin Kolbe, 13 Lukhanyo Am, 12 Damian de Allende , 11 Makazole Mapimpi, 10 Handre Pollard, 9 Cobus Reinach, 1 Trevor Nyakane, 2 Malcolm Marx, 3 Thomas du Toit, 4 Marvin Orie, 5 Lood de Jager, 6 Siya Kolisi (c), 7 Franco Mostert, 8 Jasper Wiese

Replacements: 16 Bongi Mbonambi, 17 Steven Kitshoff, 18 Frans Malherbe, 19 Nicolaas van Rensburg, 20 Kwagga Smith, 21 Dan du Preez, 22 Jaden Hendrikse, 23 Damian Willemse.

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