The South African national rugby side is on track for an undefeated tour of the Northern Hemisphere for the first time since 2013, if they can get past Wales at the Principality stadium in Cardiff on Saturday.
The Boks are up against a Welsh team that is in full crisis mode, currently enduring an 11-match losing streak.
The Springboks are treating their opponents with the requisite amount of respect, enlisting lock forward, Jean Kleyn, who last played for the Boks in last year’s world cup final, into the starting fifteen.
Jean Kleyn is set to become the 51st Springbok player picked this season, with Cameron Hanekom, on the bench, the 52nd, when he takes to the pitch on debut. Kleyn last played for the Boks in the 2023 world cup final against the All Blacks, before succumbing to injury for most of this season.
The Boks lock stocks are strong and Kleyn knows he needs to keep his name in the conversation amongst the coaching staff, but that not Kleyn’s primary motivation.
“It is not just about cementing your own place in the team it’s about performing well for South Africa and working wheel for the team. I think that’s the big thing that we all work for the common goal and that’s representing South Africa and making the crowd back home proud and you are playing for the other guys in the team and not yourself I think that’s a big thing that we work for, work towards,” says Kleyn.
The difference between the two sides is stark. The Springboks are looking for their 11th win out of 13 matches played this season, while Wales is on an 11-match losing run.
Kleyn says this makes Wales dangerous, but that the Green and Gold is not about to be the scalp that turns the losing trend around.
“Just desperation hey a dog in a corner is always a dangerous dog so I think we are definitely preparing for a big fight especially in the first twenty it is going to be. They are going to come out emotionally and it is going to be tough going for the first twenty but we have plans, we have things we have set in place to deal with their threats.”
The Springboks want this win against Wales, to curb an 11-year trend, and register a clean sweep on their Northern Hemisphere end of year tour. The last time they returned home unbeaten was in 2013.
