{"id":40946,"date":"2026-07-28T21:03:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T19:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=40946"},"modified":"2026-07-28T21:08:54","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T19:08:54","slug":"springboks-hope-for-minutes-in-the-legs-of-returning-players-in-argentina","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/springboks-hope-for-minutes-in-the-legs-of-returning-players-in-argentina\/","title":{"rendered":"Springboks hope for minutes in the legs of returning players in Argentina"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\">South Africa will use their one-off test against Argentina on August 8 to give minutes to a host of players who have returned from \u200binjury in recent weeks as they build towards their crunch four-game \u200chome series against New Zealand starting next month.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">The Springboks won all three of their home fixtures in the Nations Championship against England, Scotland and Wales, doing so without a core \u200bgroup of experience players.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">They will travel to Argentina without prop Ox Nche \u200band lock\/loose-forward Franco Mostert, but for several other double World Cup \u2060winners, it is a chance for game time.<\/div>\n<div>Captain Siya Kolisi, locks Eben Etzebeth \u200band Lood de Jager, and flyhalf Handre Pollard are all expected to travel \u200band play.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>The likes of mercurial flyhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, and utility backs Ethan Hooker and Canan Moodie are also likely to be back in the mix.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;We will pick a team to try \u200band beat Argentina, but there is a much bigger plan like most countries \u200bhave now with the Rugby World Cup in the background,&#8221; Erasmus told reporters on Tuesday.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;We must \u200cstart \u2060making plans to make sure we know what our World Cup squad looks like. But a four test series against New Zealand is long and you don\u2019t want top peak in the first game.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think any of us think \u200bone team is going \u200bto beat the \u2060other 4-0. It&#8217;s going to be much tougher than that.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">But before that is the spectre of Argentina in Buenos Aires, \u200ba team that have caused the four-times world champions plenty \u200bof problems \u2060in the past.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;I see they have picked a squad with 10 rookies in there, but if you look at their first choice team, they will definitely have more caps \u2060than \u200bour players,&#8221; Erasmus said.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;There&#8217;s a core of 15 \u200bguys that are really experienced who they can fall back on.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">The Springboks will name their touring squad \u200bfor the game in Argentina on Saturday.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13973,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-40946","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The Springboks won all three of their home fixtures in the Nations Championship against England.","published_date":"","news_description":"The Springboks won all three of their home fixtures in the Nations Championship against England.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/40946","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":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/40946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40948,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/40946\/revisions\/40948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=40946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}