Springboks bank on experience

Defending champions South Africa have named the most experienced team in rugby history for their opening Rugby World Cup 2011 Pool D match against Wales at Wellington Regional Stadium on Sunday, 11 September.

The starting team contains a total of 815 caps, five more than the previous record set by the team that played Australia in Durban in August.

South Africa coach Peter de Villiers also selected a forward-heavy bench, including three front rowers in a 5-2 split of forwards to backs.

“The first game, there are a few things we want to try out in the game. I believe we’ve got a really strong bench,” de Villiers said.

“You like to play to your strengths and that’s the reason we went for that (5-2 split). We know what we want to achieve out of this game and the make-up of the bench actually goes for that.”

When the bench players are included the total number of caps rises to 1,036.

As expected, second row Bakkies Botha is omitted because of a foot injury, with Bulls teammate Danie Rossouw coming in as his replacement alongside Victor Matfield.

Openside flanker Schalk Burger makes a welcome return from a longterm thumb injury, while loosehead prop Tendai Mtawarira, full back Frans Steyn and captain and hooker John Smit are the other four changes from the team that defeated New Zealand 18-5 in Port Elizabeth last month.

Mtawarira and Smit replace prop Gurthrö Steenkamp and hooker Bismarck du Plessis, who drop to the bench, while Willem Alberts goes back to the reserves to make way for Burger and the selection of Steyn leaves no room in the squad for previous full back Patrick Lambie.

The team contains 16 players who were part of the victorious 2007 squad, with 11 having played in the final. Nine of those are in the starting XV against Wales - Smit, Rossouw, Matfield, Burger, (Frans) Steyn, scrum half Fourie du Preez, centre Jaque Fourie and wings Bryan Habana and JP Pietersen.

Of the players selected, Matfield has 107 caps, Smit 106, reserve prop CJ van der Linde 72 and Habana 70. Eight of the starting players have 50 caps or more.

Asked what weaknesses he had identified in the Welsh that he intended to exploit, de Villiers gave nothing away.

“The lovely part of international rugby is that you don’t find weaknesses very easily. It’s most important that you do what you want to do and try to do it as good as you can for the challenge of it,” he said.

Wales name their team later on Friday.

South Africa (Test caps in brackets): 15 Frans Steyn (43), 14 JP Pietersen (38), 13 Jaque Fourie (64), 12 Jean de Villiers (69), 11 Bryan Habana (70), 10 Morné Steyn (29), 9 Fourie du Preez (57), 8 Pierre Spies (42), 7 Schalk Burger (63), 6 Heinrich Brüssow (15), 5 Victor Matfield (107), 4 Danie Rossouw (58), 3 Jannie du Plessis (26), 2 John Smit (c) (106), 1 Tendai Mtawarira (28).

Replacements: 16 Bismarck du Plessis (38), 17 Gurthrö Steenkamp (33), 18 CJ van der Linde (72), 19 Johann Muller (23), 20 Willem Alberts (4), 21 Francois Hougaard (10), 22 Butch James (41).