Springboks v All Blacks: Two Coaches, Two Very Different Answers to the Same Question

Ellis Park will be full and loud on Saturday, which is normal when South Africa host New Zealand. What is not normal is what comes after it.

This is the opening Test of a four-match series between rugby's two most decorated nations, with games still to follow in Cape Town and, for the first time in the fixture's history, on American soil in Baltimore.

Erasmus keeps the muscle, blends in the future

Rassie Erasmus has picked a side built around power and continuity rather than wholesale change. Ox Nche returns at loosehead, Eben Etzebeth keeps his lock spot alongside Ruan Nortje, and Damian de Allende partners Jesse Kriel in a midfield combination South Africa have trusted for years. De Allende will win his 100th cap in the process, only the tenth Springbok to reach that mark.

Siya Kolisi has not been risked after a hamstring niggle from the win over Argentina, with Paul de Villiers, still just 23, given the six shirt instead. It is a small but pointed statement: the world champions can protect their senior generation and blood the next one in the same team sheet. According to BBC Sport, South Africa go into the series sitting top of the world rankings, with the Rugby Championship itself cancelled this year specifically to make room for these four Tests, a sign of how much both unions are banking on the series commercially as well as competitively.

Rennie backs pace over the old guard

Dave Rennie's team sheet tells a different story. Ardie Savea returns to captain the side after three warm-up games on the bench, but the more interesting call is at fly-half, where Ruben Love gets the shirt ahead of both Beauden Barrett and the recently recalled Richie Mo'unga. It is a serious show of faith in a player with a handful of caps, and it points to New Zealand wanting width and tempo rather than a more conservative territorial game.

A series like this pulls in people who do not normally sit through 80 minutes of forward battle. Speaking to Gambling.com, an independent authority on the top rated slot sites and betting sites for UK players, one long-time Test rugby fan summed up how the occasion changes viewing habits: "You clear the evening for a night like this. Phone away, kettle on, nothing else gets a look-in until the final whistle."

The form book says this should not be close

It probably will be anyway. South Africa have won five of their last six Tests against New Zealand, including a record 43-10 win in Wellington last September, and Erasmus has been blunt about what he expects on Saturday. "They are a quality team and they're very well coached, so we are preparing for an 80-minute grind," he said, according to Sky Sports, adding that his side needed to be "sharp and accurate in our execution from the outset." That is not the language of a coach who thinks recent history guarantees anything.

Rennie, for his part, has leaned on the value of the warm-up wins over the Stormers, Sharks and Bulls, arguing his newer players now understand how South African sides operate before facing the real thing. Whether three franchise games translate into Test-match composure at altitude, in front of a crowd that has waited a year for this fixture, is exactly what Saturday will answer.

Team news and build-up

For the fuller breakdown of New Zealand's selection, including why Cam Roigard's fitness mattered as much as who started at ten, our team news coverage of Ardie Savea's return to the captaincy is worth a read before kick-off. Between the personnel calls and the history between these two sides, there is a genuine case for this being the most even opening Test the rivalry has produced in years.

Kick-off at Ellis Park is 4.10pm UK time on Saturday. Whichever way it goes, three more of these are still to come.