{"id":14037,"date":"2025-10-29T06:48:05","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T04:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/porthen-set-for-springbok-debut-against-japan\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:26:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:26:42","slug":"porthen-set-for-springbok-debut-against-japan","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/porthen-set-for-springbok-debut-against-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"Porthen set for Springbok debut against Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Zachary Porthen, former Junior Springbok captain and Stormers tighthead prop, will make his international debut when South Africa (SA) faces Japan at Wembley Stadium in London on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus selected a largely settled match-day 23 for the first game of the November Internationals, emphasising the importance of the fixture for players returning from Japan\u2019s professional league.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Erasmus explained that the game was arranged specifically to give these players valuable match practice. \u201cThere are around eleven or twelve players, including Manie, who play in Japan. Without test matches for us, they wouldn\u2019t have had much game time. This fixture was always planned to get them match-fit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The match is the first step in SA\u2019s end-of-year tour, with the team preparing for key tests against France and Ireland later in the series.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14038,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-14037","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Zachary Porthen will make his international debut when South Africa (SA) faces Japan","published_date":"2025-10-29 08:46:49","news_description":"Zachary Porthen will make his international debut when South Africa (SA) faces Japan","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/14037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/14037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18881,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/14037\/revisions\/18881"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=14037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}