Wales look to make it an all British battle as they prepare to face South Africa in the World Cup Semi Final in Yokohama on Sunday.
With rivals England already through, Wales will be hungrier than ever to reach their first World Cup final.
St Helen’s own, Ross Moriarty has earned himself a starting position after his dramatic try just five minutes from time.
The Merseyside born flanker thought he had blown his chance 90 seconds after being brought on with a high tackle that resulted in a yellow card. The 25-year-old went onto score the winning try and with Navidi’s injury has cemented his place in the starting 15.
Twice Wales have found themselves in this position, just one game shy of the grand finale and twice they have fallen just short. The most recent of these coming when they were narrowly beaten 9-8 by France in 2011.
The Springboks have been a thorn in the side of the Welsh team in the previous two world cups, beating them in the pool stage in 2011 and knocking them out in the quarter finals in 2015.
Things have changed for Wales in the following years though, as they now stand Grand Slam Six Nation Champions. They have also won the previous four meetings between the two sides.
Many people believe that this is Wales’ best chance at world cup glory. Head coach Warren Gatland had this to say about the fixture: “I am excited about it. I am more looking forward to this game than last week. I am more confident about this game than we probably were against France.”
Team news:
Josh Navidi is ruled out of the tournament with a Hamstring injury and will be replaced by Ross Moriarty. Liam Williams ankle injury means that Halfpenny comes into the squad.
South Africa make only one change as S’busiso Nkosi comes in after star man Kolbe suffers an ankle injury.
Picture by: Clément Bucco-Lechat [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]
