Div stays loyal to beaten Boks

Wellington - Springboks coach Peter de Villiers remained loyal to his side hammered 32-12 in the first Tri-Nations Test against the All Blacks, making only two enforced changes for Saturday's Test.

Veteran tighthead prop CJ van der Linde comes in for the injured Jannie de Plessis and Danie Rossouw replaces Bakkies Botha, who received a nine-week suspension for head-butting All Blacks' scrumhalf Jimmy Cowan.

De Villiers named his team on Tuesday, saying there was no panic in the South African ranks despite the heavy defeat suffered in Auckland at the weekend by his world champions and reigning Tri-Nations titleholders.

"The way you lose is not as important as how you stand up from such a defeat," he said.

"The guys know they didn’t perform well, they remain proud and they realise that they have hard work ahead of them this week."

Sharks backrower Ryan Kankowski comes into the squad and is the only change to the reserves bench for Saturday's second Test in Wellington.

De Villiers described the four tries-to-nil hiding in the first Test as an off-day and no reason to tinker with his line-up.

"Part of being professional is having to stand up again after those kind of setbacks," he said.

"It won't happen every day that everybody is one per cent off their game and if you are one per cent off against a team like the All Blacks, then you will get hammered.

"Our execution was bad, something happened to make us slower off the mark. But we are aware of it."

De Villiers said the All Blacks also deserved credit for the way they played, bouncing back from a 3-0 whitewash by the Springboks last year.

"The All Blacks were very good at the weekend and they did not allow us space to play the way we wanted," he said.

"We can’t look for excuses. The All Blacks were better than us, it’s as simple as that."

Teams

South Africa

15. Zane Kirchner, 14. Jean de Villiers, 13. Jaque Fourie, 12. Wynand Oliver, 11. Bryan Habana, 10. Morne Steyn, 9. Ricky Januarie, 8. Pierre Spies, 7. Francois Louw, 6. Schalk Burger, 5. Victor Matfield, 4. Danie Rossouw, 3. CJ van der Linde, 2. John Smit (captain), 1. Gurthro Steenkamp

Substitutes: 16. Chiliboy Ralepelle, 17. BJ Botha, 18. Andries Bekker, 19. Ryan Kankowski, 20. Ruan Pienaar, 21. Butch James, 22. Gio Aplon

New Zealand 

TBA