South Africa have one less thing to worry about when they face the All Blacks in Dunedin this weekend, and not only will they not have to face an injured Dan Carter, but they face the New Zealand version of Ricky Januarie in Piri Weepu, who starts ahead of Aaron Smith.
Weepu comes into the halfback pairing to add experience to the 9/10 combination with Aaron Cruden himself still a rookie in the All Black jersey. This is one of four changes to the team that beat Argentina last weekend, but all changes being within the match day 22.
In other swops between starting fifteen and the bench, Liam Messam starts ahead of Victor Vito, Sam Whitelock starts ahead of Brodie Retallick and Andrew Hore starts ahead of the ever-green Keven Mealamu.
There is one change to the bench though, with Ben Smith missing out altogether in favour of Tamati Ellison.
New Zealand: 15 Israel Dagg, 14 Cory Jane, 13 Conrad Smith, 12 Ma’a Nonu, 11 Julian Savea, 10 Aaron Cruden, 9 Piri Weepu, 8 Kieran Read, 7 Richie McCaw (captain), 6 Liam Messam, 5 Sam Whitelock, 4 Luke Romano, 3 Owen Franks, 2 Andrew Hore, 1 Tony Woodcock.
Replacements: 16 Keven Mealamu, 17 Charlie Faumuina, 18 Brodie Retallick, 19 Victor Vito, 20 Aaron Smith, 21 Beauden Barrett, 22 Tamati Ellison.
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Nasty Rich! š
To be fair though Piri looks in pretty good condition at the moment.
@Pokkel (Comment 1) :
Now the All Blacks will only win by 15 points, and not by the 25 I originally had them at..
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 2) : š
Haha, the overweight scrumhalf, seems SA arent the other place with that problem.
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 2) : Or maybe just 30 instead of 40