Meyer keeps his winning formula

South African coach Heyneke Meyer named an unchanged matchday-23 to face New Zealand at Eden Park in Auckland in the fourth round of the Rugby Championship on Saturday.


"We're very fortunate to have a touring squad of 28 fit players to choose from, but following the performance last weekend against Australia, it made sense not to make any changes," the Springbok coach said.


"Continuity in selection has been something we wanted to address this year and I'm very happy that we've not been forced into making too many changes yet.


"The 23 who played against Australia, deserved another chance this week as we believe in rewarding good form.


"I have faith in all the players in the squad and I feel we've now got to a situation where any player can come in at any stage without too much disruption."


South Africa: 15 Zane Kirchner, 14 Willie le Roux, 13 JJ Engelbrecht, 12 Jean de Villiers (captain), 11 Bryan Habana,  10 Morné Steyn, 9 Ruan Pienaar, 8 Duane Vermeulen, 7 Willem Alberts, 6 Francois Louw, 5 Flip van der Merwe, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Jannie du Plessis, 2 Bismarck du Plessis, 1 Tendai Mtawarira.

Replacements: 16 Adriaan Strauss , 17 Gurthrö Steenkamp, 18 Coenie Oosthuizen, 19 Juandré Kruger, 20 Siya Kolisi, 21 Jano Vermaak, 22 Pat Lambie, 23 Jan Serfontein.


Date: Saturday, September 14

Venue: Eden Park, Auckland

Kick-off: 19.35 (09.35 SA time; 07.35 GMT)

Referee: Romain Poite (France)

Assistant referees: Jérôme Garcès (France), Francisco Pastrana (Argentina)

TMO: George Ayoub (Australia)