South Africa boss makes changes
Tuesday, 20 July 2010 08:01South Africa coach Peter de Villiers has rung the changes ahead of Saturday's Tri Nations clash with Australia at Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium.
The Springboks are coming off the back of consecutive losses at the hands of New Zealand and De Villiers has shuffled his pack in an effort to reverse his side's fortunes.
The South Africa matchday squad shows four changes to the starting XV and a further five among the replacements from the 22-man selection for last week's 31-17 defeat at the hands of the All Blacks in Wellington.
Gio Aplon, who was on the bench for the last Test, starts in place of the suspended Jean de Villiers on the right wing while Ruan Pienaar comes in for Ricky Januarie at scrum-half.
BJ Botha starts ahead of CJ van der Linde at tighthead prop while Ryan Kankowski replaces Francois Louw on the flank.
Van der Linde drops to the bench, with other changes among the replacements seeing Flip van der Merwe, Dewald Potgieter, Francois Hougaard and Juan de Jongh come in.
Andries Bekker misses out with a back injury while Januarie and Louw have been dropped from the matchday squad.
De Villiers explained that his changes were influenced in part by the characteristics of the Suncorp Stadium.
'Statistics show that Suncorp has the fastest playing surface in Super 14 and we have to be prepared for a faster game,' he said.
'We have two tough games behind us, but if we stick to our structures and use our opportunities I believe this team is capable of getting a result.'
