The first test of the season kicks off at Kings Park at 17h15 today.
The Boks have lost a bit of experience, but will still hope to get their 2013 campaign off to a winning start.
South Africa: 15 Willie le Roux, 14 Bryan Habana, 13 JJ Engelbrecht, 12 Jean de Villiers (captain), 11 Bjorn Basson, 10 Morné Steyn, 9 Jano Vermaak, 8 Pierre Spies, 7 Arno Botha, 6 Francois Louw, 5 Juandré Kruger, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Jannie du Plessis, 2 Adriaan Strauss, 1 Tendai Mtawarira.
Replacements: 16 Chiliboy Ralepelle, 17 Trevor Nyakane, 18 Coenie Oosthuizen, 19 Flip van der Merwe, 20 Marcell Coetzee, 21 Ruan Pienaar, 22 Pat Lambie, 23 Jan Serfontein.
Italy: 15 Andrea Masi, 14 Giovanbattista Venditti, 13 Luca Morisi, 12 Alberto Sgarbi, 11 Luke McLean, 10 Alberto di Bernardo, 9 Edoardo Gori, 8 Sergio Parisse (captain), 7 Robert Barbieri, 6 Alessandro Zanni, 5 Marco Bortolami, 4 Antonio Pavanello, 3 Lorenzo Cittadini, 2 Leonardo Ghiraldini, 1 Alberto de Marchi.
Replacements: 16 Davide Giazzon, 17 Matias Aguero, 18 Martín Castrogiovanni, 19 Valerio Bernabò, 20 Joshua Furno, 21 Tobias Botes, 22 Luciano Orquera, 23 Tommaso Iannone.
Tweet
well done Bulls. uurrgh.. I mean, well done Bokke !
@SharksRTB (Comment 1) : Haters be Haters 😛
wow they really made hard work of it during the second half.
The first great game Kings Park has seen since R18 last year… (the Rebels match doesn’t really count)
With the points machine at 10 and Willie at 15 I only see good things coming from this team.
You can’t really fault anyone from yesterday’s performance, Steyn did well and apart from 1 or 2 missed tackles. Arno and stood out like a sore thumb in yesterday’s effort. Habana remains a classy player
When Its all said and done…Morne Steyn did nothing more than expected from him…AGAIN. This is against Italy…The reason Italy dominate the 20min-60min period was because CERTAIN players kicked the ball to them the whole time…Pure class right there
@pienaar111 (Comment 7) : Ja I also don’t get the whole thing around Steyn. He’s good at kicking, that is it. We’re still stuck in the Naas Botha era of 10’s. 🙄
Sadly Lambie is trying to emulate Steyn, and he’s failing miserably.
@FireTheLooser (Comment 8) : Agree with Lambie but he is young and still has the ability…However I do feel Naas Botha deserves more credit than he gets…he is more a Wilkinson player. Dominates with the boot (no doubt) BUT does so smartly. Not just kick and chase….know what I mean??
@Ludz (Comment 6) : Willie messed up 3 passes that were crucial.