The Springboks will play one final warm up game this weekend before the coaches finalise their 33-man World Cup squad, which will be announced on Tuesday, 8 August.
It’s likely that the squad will already be almost 95% certain at this point, but there is a last-gasp opportunity for some players to make a big impression against the Pumas in Buenos Aires this Saturday. Kickoff is at 9.10pm SA time.
After this weekend’s clash, the Springboks will face Wales and the All Blacks in other warm-up games, with the clash against New Zealand expected to involve South Africa’s first-choice team.
“The easiest way to get cohesiveness is in team selection and that’s probably where we put the team under pressure,” Coach Jacques Nienaber commented recently when discussing the strategy to mix and match with the team line-ups during the Rugby Championship.
“Every week they’ve had a different prop, a different hooker, a different rhythm so that’s almost the nice thing, as we take them out their rhythm because of the way we have chopped and changed in terms of team selection, and as we get closer to the World Cup there will definitely be more consistency in selection.”
With all this in mind, here’s a reminder below about the remaining fixtures and kick-off times before the World Cup gets underway in September.
SPRINGBOKS’ 2023 FIXTURES:
RWC warm-up fixtures:
Friday, 25 August – Boks vs New Zealand (Twickenham, London), 8.30p
RWC FIXTURES:
Sunday, 17 September – Boks v Romania (Stade de Bordeaux, Bordeaux), 3pm
Saturday, 23 September – Boks v Ireland (Stade de France, Paris), 9pm
Sunday, 1 October – Boks v Tonga (Stade Velodrome, Marseille), 9pm
Weekend of 14/15 October – Quarter-finals
Weekend of 21/22 October – Semi-finals
Saturday, 28 October – Final
Sourced from: Springboks’ World Cup warm-up games: Kick-off times, dates (thesouthafrican.com)
