Wallabies captain Harry Wilson is drawing on the wisdom of cricket great Justin Langer to tame South Africa despite the loss of second rower Josh Canham.
Canham was withdrawn early on Saturday due to a mild hamstring issue, replaced by Lukhan Salakaia-Loto in the starting side, bringing Lachlan Shaw onto the bench.
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The Victorian-bred lock has been one of the Wallabies most consistent in 2026, enjoying a breakthrough international season.
But Wilson was confident the setback wouldn’t disrupt the side ahead of facing the world number one side.
“It is always a big loss when you lose your lineout caller, and someone like Canham has been playing some really good footy for us,” he told reporters.
“With someone like Jeremy Williams, he has called [lineouts] at international footy before and we're really looking forward to him having that opportunity. Plus Lukhan coming into the starting side, I know how excited he is and he's been raring to go. He might not offer Canham’s jumping ability, but gee whiz, he can offer some other stuff around the field.”
The cricket-mad Wilson sat down with Australian cricketing legend Langer during the week, with the former Aussie coach inspiring the team ahead of the challenge.
“It was really cool having him in here. Obviously, I'm a massive cricket fan and a few of the other boys in there, Fraser [McReight] loves his cricket too so he was enjoying it himself too,” Wilson said.
“For 'JL', he was so passionate. Every word he said, he was just so passionate and he's obviously played at a high level for 15-20 years and he's coached the Australian cricket team through some tough periods and got him to the number one in the world.
“It was good to ask him what he expects from his leadership group, from his leaders and we did get a lot of wisdom out of him.
“For me, I just really enjoyed his passion. When he speaks, he's cool and he came and watched our session on Wednesday. He felt a bit of a connection with us and wanted to come out and watch us train too, and he was loving it. It was cool.”
Wilson played a big part in last year's in Johannesburg, fighting through a knee injury to score a double.
It was the catalyst behind ending a 62-year drought at Ellis Park, but Wilson knows it's a different challenge this time around.
"We've definitely looked back on some of the things we did really well against them, and it definitely gives the boys a lot of confidence but we're really aware that it means nothing tomorrow night
"We've watched them very closely in the last four matches against the Kiwis in some unbelievable test footy and now we get the opportunity to go against them.
"There's been a few changes but they've still got 10 World Cup winners in there. Their second-row pairings have played 250 international games, so they still have plenty of experience.
