The Springboks face a watershed moment on Saturday as they seek to level the inaugural Rugby's Greatest Rivalry series at DHL Stadium, with the scrum battle set to dominate proceedings after All Blacks coach Dave Rennie's midweek intervention with World Rugby.

Australian referee Angus Gardner was called in at the 11th hour to replace Georgian Nika Amashukeli, who fell ill, a development that may shift the balance in New Zealand's favour. Rennie has spent the week lobbying World Rugby over what he perceives as illegal scrummaging by the Boks, whose set-piece was dominant for much of last week's 33-16 defeat at Ellis Park.

"Scrum wise we've spoken with World Rugby over a few issues from our point of view and we think we will be much better in that phase," Rennie said at Thursday's team announcement. "That was a massive in for them last week. We think if they're forced to scrum square and not allowed to step sideways and walk around us, then we will be able to stay in front and we'll be able to get footie going off that."

Boks park the disappointment

Springbok prop Thomas du Toit, named among the replacement front row alongside Deon Fourie and Gerhard Steenekamp, said the squad had moved swiftly to address last week's shortcomings. The team remained in Johannesburg until Wednesday to complete their main training block before arriving in the Mother City.

"The important thing was to park that game and take the learnings as quickly as we could," Du Toit told the media on Thursday. "I think we've done an incredible job over the last couple of years putting each game in its own box and not looking back at what went wrong the whole week, but rather trying to rectify as much as we can and fix things as quickly as possible. By Monday afternoon we had a proper review, and we worked on the things that went wrong on the training field this week."

Du Toit acknowledged the challenge posed by an All Blacks scrum that showed improvement in Tuesday's midweek fixture against the Lions. "It's going to be interesting, like every other week. We trained hard this week, and I'm sure the All Blacks have too, and everyone will try to bring their A-game on Saturday. Look at the Lions game you could definitely see they've been working on it and it's going well for them, so we'll do our best, but it's something both teams pride themselves on."

Fortress DHL Stadium

The Boks will draw confidence from their record at the venue, having won five of six internationals at DHL Stadium since 2021. Their only defeat came against the British & Irish Lions in July 2021, a 22-17 reverse they avenged with consecutive victories in the same series. The previous meeting between these sides at Cape Town Stadium ended in an 18-12 Springbok victory in 2024.

Another defeat on Saturday would end South Africa's hopes of securing the Rugby's Greatest Rivalry series, placing immense pressure on Rassie Erasmus' selection and the team's ability to respond under scrutiny. With Gardner's appointment adding an extra layer of intrigue to the scrum battle, the Boks must prove their set-piece dominance was legitimate whilst rediscovering the form that has made them world champions.