For Jean-Luc du Preez, Test starts don’t come around often – and in his case he’s had to wait seven years for another go in the Springbok starting lineup.

Granted he started in the Boks’ first match of the 2025 season against the Barbarians in Cape Town, but that wasn’t classified as an official Test, so you’d have to go all the way back to the 9th of June 2018 against England at Ellis Park when Du Preez last started a Test.

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In what was Rassie Erasmus’ second match at the helm of the Boks, Du Preez started alongside injured captain Siya Kolisi – Damian de Allende and Franco Mostert the two other survivors from that game. He has since made three Test appearances for the Boks, the last of which came against Argentina in the buildup to the 2023 Rugby World Cup.

“My first Test for seven years – that speaks for itself. I’d just like to do my best for the team and get us on the front foot and hopefully we can do a good job on Saturday.”

In the context of the result against the Wallabies at Ellis Park, Du Preez says it’s natural to feel the weight of what this opportunity means. But he also adds that getting himself right mentally has been a big part of his preparation ahead of the Cape Town rematch.

“I’ve been thinking quite a bit this week because of the result last week. There is a lot of pressure on us and for me to come in, not having started in seven years – I’ve just tried not thinking about the outside noise too much. Just trying to get my prep right to do a proper job.”

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The 29-year-old has been deployed to add punch from the base of the Bok scrum where he’ll be used to batter the advantage line. But Du Preez says defensively, they would need to neutralise the threat of specialist Wallaby ball-poacher Fraser McReight.

“We know he’s a very good fetcher but for us, we just need more urgency to the breakdown and we’ve worked on that this week, just getting in before the breakdown actually forms.”

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