New Zealand v South Africa, Tri-Nations, Wellington, July 17
Springboks call for van der Merwe
Scrum.com
July 14, 2010

South Africa coach Peter De Villiers has called for Bulls lock Flip van der Merwe following Bakkies Botha's nine-week suspension for headbutting All Black Jimmy Cowan.

Van der Merwe, who made his Test debut against France in June before scoring a try against Italy, will join the Boks for the remainder of their Tri-Nations Australasian tour as back-up to Victor Matfield, Danie Rossouw and Andries Bekker.

The Springboks are out for revenge on Saturday, taking on the All Blacks in Wellington a week after suffering a 32-12 hammering in Auckland, before tackling the Wallabies in Brisbane on July 24.

Matfield and Rossouw will start at Westpac Stadium, with All Blacks coach Graham Henry promising another fired-up display from his side.

"Generally the All Blacks are pretty good, they get themselves up every week and they've got intrinsic motivators," he said. "We realise that this is a pretty good contest. We had the same contest last year and didn't do too well.

"So among the senior players and everybody else, there's talk about that big performance again. It's more about doing it than talking about it."

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