Pieter-Steph du Toit's 100th cap at his home ground against the All Blacks is the emotional centrepiece of a selection that doubles as a serious tactical reset. The piece frames Pollard's recall as a deliberate echo of last year's Cape Town rescue act after the Joburg loss to Australia — Erasmus has run this play before and it worked. The more significant story, though, is the wholesale Bomb Squad overhaul: five dropped, with Fourie, Thomas du Toit, Lood de Jager, Hanekom and Morne van den Berg brought in to replace a bench that visibly misfired in the first Test. The analysis reads the new-look bench as more experienced, more balanced, and with a clearer impact hierarchy — and notes that Hanekom's unbucketed listing signals he'll get game time regardless of Kolisi's fitness. Feinberg-Mngomezulu survives the axe, but only because his positional flexibility makes a 6-2 forward-heavy bench workable. The piece also marks Ox Nche's 50th cap and the remarkable Deon Fourie becoming the oldest Springbok to play a Test at 39 — a player Erasmus clearly rates highly enough to bring back after a three-year absence.