Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus has explained why he recalled some of his experienced players to do battle against New Zealand in round four of the Rugby Championship at the DHL Stadium in Cape Town on Saturday (17:00), saying this game will possibly decide where the tournament goes.

After his side recorded a nervy 31-27 comeback last week, Erasmus has made seven changes for the highly anticipated rematch on Thursday. 

The halfback pairing is a fresh one and features Grant Williams, and Handre Pollard in place of Cobus Reinach, and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who is on the bench. 

Meanwhile, Willie Le Roux has retained his 15 jumper in place of Aphelele Fassi, while Canan Moodie, who last played for the Boks at last year’s Rugby World Cup, will start on the wing in place of the injured Kurt-Lee Arendse. 

Erasmus has also opted for a 5/3 split on the bench with Jaden Hendrikse, Feinberg Mngomezulu, and Lukhanyo Am set to provide backline cover. 

“Sometimes there’s games where we want to grow our team, and sometimes there’s games where you desperately want to win,” said Erasmus on Thursday. 

 “I think trying to win this game would mean a lot in the Rugby Championship for the last two rounds.

“We’ve gone with the best players in the group possibly. I think a guy like Salmaan Moerat is very unlucky to not be in this team, Kurt-Lee (Arendse) is out, and we don’t forget the guys like Canan and what they’ve done for us before.” 

Much of the concern during the week centered around the availability of captain Siya Kolisi. This is after the skipper suffered an injury to his face after a collision with Sam Cane in the first test.  The team announcement was delayed giving him enough time to recover. He trained with the team during the week, and Erasmus believes he’s good to go. 

 “It’s a fractured nose, and it has to be reset” Erasmus revealed. “He had two options, he can either get it placed back now and he’ll be out for three weeks or the doctor says he can wait for two weeks. 

“The massive thing about this game is that everyone wants to play against the All Blacks at Cape Town Stadium. He wanted the option to play now and get it reset in two weeks.” 

One of the surprising changes in the starting lineup was that of Le Roux replacing Fassi at fullback despite having a cracker last weekend. Erasmus, however, assured supporters that Fassi, who was sin-binned in last week’s game, his omission doesn’t mean he’s out of the picture, and he’s certainly in the plans going forward. 

 “Fassi was brilliant, we asked specifically to do well in the game,” he said. 

 “I think his defence was rock solid, his kicking game was good, his high ball game was good.

“We’ve got a guy that’s on 97 caps playing with Handre, I think there’s 19/18 guys that were at the World Cup in this group – I don’t think we’re being unfair with other guys by giving them exposure, and so we will keep on doing that, and it’s nice to do it while winning.

“We have a plan about how we want to run the next three years, and Fassi is definitely part of that plan.”