Elrigh Louw and Johan Grobbelaar have been released from the Springbok camp to join the Bulls for Saturday's Rugby's Greatest Rivalry tour match against the All Blacks at Loftus Versfeld, with both men set to come off the bench.
The pair featured for the Springboks in Buenos Aires last weekend — Grobbelaar scoring the winning try in a tight match against Argentina — and have had only a single training session with the Bulls since returning, which rules them out of a starting berth. Their inclusion displaces Mpilo Gumede and Juandre Schoeman from the matchday 23.
Saturday's fixture is the All Blacks' third match of their South African tour, and Ackermann has been candid about where his squad stands heading into it. The Bulls are three weeks into pre-season, were hit by a flu virus last week, and Ackermann acknowledged the side will not be at full sharpness.
"In the context of the season, we won't be where we want to be and the way we could play, we will be a bit of a way off," he said. "We definitely won't be match fit and sharp but we will be as well prepared as we can for this time of the season."
The release of Louw and Grobbelaar is framed as an opportunity for both players to accumulate game time ahead of the Springboks' three-Test Rugby's Greatest Rivalry series against New Zealand, which begins the following week.