Etzebeth to start after being cleared
Rugby:South Africa have named an unchanged starting line-up for Saturday’s international against England. Eben Etzebeth, who was last night cleared at a disciplinary hearing of making contact with the eyes of Scotland outhalf Greig Laidlaw, starts in the second row.
Etzebeth, 21, appeared before the independent judicial officer, David Martin, who ruled the contact with Laidlaw’s eyes was accidental. An official statement from the Six Nations, who oversee disciplinary matters in the autumn internationals, read: “The judicial officer held that the contact in the area of the Scotland player’s eyes was accidental, and as such did not constitute foul play.”The Springboks line-up for their last test of the year includes Bath flanker Francois Louw while Saracens hooker Schalk Brits is on the bench. "It's great to be able to field an unchanged team," said Springboks coach Heynecke Meyer.
"We've been able to show some consistency in selection on this tour and that is a good thing. The players have worked extremely hard on the training field and it wasn't easy to select the match 23 for each of the three Tests, but I'm happy that we managed to stick to combinations."
Skipper Jean de Villiers will become the fifth most-capped Springbok of all time when he plays in his 84th Test. De Villiers will pass Bryan Habana on 83 caps to move into fifth place behind John Smit (111), Victor Matfield (110), Percy Montgomery (102) and Joost van der Westhuizen (89).
"I'm very chuffed for Jean," said Meyer. "He took over the captaincy in a challenging year and has been a rock in our team. The fact that Jean has played in every Test this season, and finished all of them, is testimony to his amazing resilience and work ethic. Jean has been the glue that has kept our team together and for that I salute him."
South Africa:15 Zane Kirchner; 14 JP Pietersen, 13 Juan de Jongh, 12 Jean de Villiers (c), 11 Francois Hougaard; 10 Pat Lambie, 9 Ruan Pienaar; 1 Gurthro Steenkamp, 2 Adriaan Strauss, 3 Jannie du Plessis; 4 Eben Etzebeth, 5 Juandro Kruger; 6 Francois Louw, 7 Willem Alberts, 8 Duane Vermeulen. Replacements:16 Schalk Brits, 17 Heinke van der Merwe, 18 Pat Cilliers, 19 Flip van der Merwe, 20 Marcell Coetzee, 21 Elton Jantjies, 22 Jaco Taute, 23 Lwazi Mvovo.
