After receiving the red card against France in Paris on Saturday, Springbok lock Lood de Jager will find out his fate when he faces a mandatory disciplinary hearing on Tuesday.
De Jager’s permanent red card left many rugby pundits dumbfounded and caused even former Springbok captain John Smit to question the wisdom of the decision, but De Jager is set to receive a ban for the red card unless he can convince the disciplinary committee otherwise.
That news, as well as several bruised and battered bodies, has convinced the Bok team to shift their own team announcement from Monday to Thursday to give them more clarity in the selection process.
While a recall for Handre Pollard is expected among the shuffles, with Ethan Hooker moving into the midfield and Canan Moodie likely on the wing, the Boks are also set to use Marco van Staden in a rejigged loose trio as they prepare for an Italian side that is on a high after their win over Australia.
Attack coach Tony Brown said there were some “very sore” bodies in the team and that they expected an outcome on De Jager before Wednesday.
“Yeah, we've got a lot of sore bodies as you can imagine. So recovery's massive for us yesterday and today, and we'll see how the guys train today. But hopefully we've got no injury concerns.
“With Lood, he's obviously got to go through a hearing later on. I mean maybe tomorrow I think it is. So we won't find out if he's available for selection until after that.
“So probably looking at Wednesday for him.”
Brown explained that the team’s focus has moved to Italy, and they expect a tough challenge this weekend.
“I think the France game was a massive game. It'd been built up for a long time,” he said on Monday.
“It was a big week for us. There's a lot of media around France trying to get revenge and things like that. Us as a team, we just focused on our performance, doing everything we could to win that game in Paris.
“Now we've done that, the whole team today has moved on to Italy. If you've watched Italy play Australia, you know that they're going to be a tough team, a tough challenge for us. They're passionate at home, the same as the French.
“So we've got to make sure we prepare as well as we can and make sure we tick every box like we did against France.”
'DIFFERENT CHALLENGES'
While some may suggest this is an easier fixture than the French outing, Brown said they expected Italy to be just as physical as the French.
“Italy's a physical side. They do play differently from France. They pose different challenges with the ball in hand. They're very much coached like an Argentinian team and you know Argentina likes to throw the ball around. So Italy is very similar. Their game has improved a hell [of a lot] over the last couple of years, and they're a dangerous side.
So we've got to make sure that we understand their threats and prepare as well as we can for them.”
Rassie Erasmus believes Lood de Jager’s red card against France should have been a 20-minute sanction rather than a permanent sending-off. https://t.co/86IIgzCRrv
— SA Rugby magazine (@SARugbymag) November 10, 2025
Brown also said that the experiment with Andre Esterhuizen has paid off handsomely, particularly when he covered flank and popped up in the backline in Paris.
“What started out as a little bit of an experiment with André trying to get him to be able to play loose forward and inside centre has become a bit of a weapon for us.
"...Getting the red card and having André on the bench. I don't know if we could have asked for a better impact player in that situation who could go to the mauls, go to the scrums and then defend at inside centre when France had the ball. So yeah, he's getting better and better as we get through the test match here.”
The Boks will name their side for the clash on Thursday.
