South Africa go for experience as captain Smit returns

SOUTH AFRICA v AUSTRALIA:SOUTH AFRICA will field the most experienced team in their history when they take on Australia in Sundays quarter-final. John Smit will lead a team that boasts 836 caps with more than half the starting line-up having played in over 50 Tests.

The list does not include the 76-cap secondrow Bakkies Botha, who aggravated an Achilles tendon injury in training this week and has probably played his last game for the Springboks. The 32-year-old is joining Toulon on a three-year contract at the end of the World Cup.

It was a sad day for me and for Bakkies, said the South Africa coach, Peter de Villiers. It looks like his tournament is over and to look at his face last night was not the best thing you could do. That is reality, that is life. You have to move on.

There had been speculation that De Villiers would drop his captain, John Smit, and start Bismarck du Plessis at hooker, but the frontrow casualty turned out to be Tendai The Beast Mtawarira, who did not even make the bench.

There is nothing wrong with the Beast, said de Villiers. You can only run with 22 players in the match-day squad and we have chosen what we feel is the best combination for this match.”

De Villiers has named four forwards on the bench because wing, JP Pietersen, has still to fully recover from a knee injury, and Gio Aplon provides specialist cover. South Africa have taken note of the way Ireland mangled the Wallabies. Australia were not at their best that day and the Irish were, said Smit. We will not read too much into it, but it has been part of our preparation. We are an experienced side and we have to put them under pressure.

Schalk Burger noted that experienced could be defined one of two ways depending on the result. If we win on Sunday, people will say it is because of our experience, he said. If we lose, they will say it is down to our age.

SOUTH AFRICA:P Lambie; JP Pietersen, J Fourie, J de Villiers, B Habana; M Steyn, F du Preez; G Steenkamp, J Smit (capt), J du Plessis; D Rossouw, V Matfield; H Brussow, S Burger, P Spies. Replacements: B du Plessis, CJ van der Linde, W Alberts, F Louw, F Hougaard, B James, G Aplon.