Australia v South Africa Live

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South Africa take on Australia in the third quarter-final of the Rugby World Cup 2011 and the game will be played on Sunday October 9, 2011. The match starts at 1800 hours local time, at the Wellington Regional Stadium.

This is the most interesting of the four match-ups, what with the two of the top three ranked sides in the world taking on each other. South Africa lead the head to head currently, going in at 41-31 but in the most recent meetings, the Wallabies had beaten the Springboks twice in the Tri Nations. Australia had gone on to defeat the All Blacks to win the Tri Nations as well.

Things have been different for the two sides in this competition though.

In the group stages of the competition, the Aussies won three games, against Italy, USA and Russia, but the one they lost was one of the most vitals ones – against the Irish. That put them to the second position in the group and meant that they would have to face South Africa in the quarter-finals.

South Africa finished atop of the group and generally improved as the tournament progressed. They started out with a 17-16 edging out of the Welsh side, before defeating the Fijians 49-3, crushing the Namibia side 87-0 and finally overcoming Samoa in a tough battle, 13-5.

However, their problem is that they will be without two of their key figures for the quarter-finaols. Bakkies Botha has had to return back because of his Achilles heel and Frans Steyn out because of a shoulder damage.

On the other hand, Australia have had their injury issues as well and will be without Drew Mitchell and Wycliff Palu. Lachie Turner and Matt Hodgson come into the side, even as the likes of Pat McCabe, Kurtley Beale, Digby Ioane and Anthony Fainga'a will also make it to the starting 15.

TEAMS:

South Africa: 1. Gurthro Steenkamp, 2. John Smit (capt), 3. Jannie du Plessis, 4. Danie Rossouw, 5. Victor Matfield, 6. Heinrich Brussow, 7. Schalk Burger, 8. Pierre Spies, 9. Fourie du Preez, 10. Morne Steyn, 11. Bryan Habana, 12. Jean de Villiers, 13. Jaque Fourie, 14. JP Pietersen, 15. Patrick Lambie.

Reserves: 16. Bismarck du Plessis, 17. CJ van der Linde, 18. Willem Alberts, 19. Francois Louw, 20. Francois Hougaard, 21. Butch James, 22. Gio Aplon.

Australia: 1. Sekope Kepu, 2. Stephen Moore, 3. Ben Alexander, 4. Daniel Vickerman, 5. James Horwill (capt), 6. Rocky Elsom, 7. David Pocock, 8. Radike Samo, 9. Will Genia, 10. Quade Cooper, 11. Digby Ioane, 12. Pat McCabe, 13. Adam Ashley-Cooper, 14. James O’Connor, 15. Kurtley Beale.

Reserves: 16. Tatafu Polota-Nau, 17. James Slipper, 18. Nathan Sharpe, 19. Ben McCalman, 20. Luke Burgess, 21. Berrick Barnes, 22. Anthony Fainga'a.