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Spies comes in for injured Niekerk
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTSPRETORIA, South Africa -- Pierre Spies will replace flanker Joe van Niekerk for South Africa's Tri-nations Test with champions New Zealand on Saturday. Van Niekerk was ruled out of the game in Pretoria on Friday due to a neck injury. "Joe couldn't sleep and in the middle of the night he went to see the doctor, who organised scans this morning," said Springbok coach Jake White . "The scans showed some movement between the C5 and C6 vertebrae, the same place where Schalk Burger had his injury. It's another over-use injury and it's too much of a risk to put him on the field." White said Spies, named on the bench when Van Niekerk was promoted to replace the injured Juan Smith, beat reserve lock Albert van den Berg and the hastily-recalled Pedrie Wannenburg to the number seven jersey. Van den Berg and Wannenburg will be on the bench. "Albert was an option because he's played flank for Griqualand West and would cover for Juan as a lineout option, but Pierre has been part of training for the whole week and knows what we're doing," White said. The Springboks have already lost Burger to a career-threatening neck injury and in-form Smith went down in midweek with a thigh strain. New Zealand clinched the Tri-nations title with a 34-27 win over Australia in Auckland last weekend. Their last appearance in Pretoria in 2003 brought them a 52-16 victory. "The All Blacks have shown that they're the form team, the many changes they've made have added a lot more pace and they've done really well at Loftus Versfeld in the past," White said. "But this is a new Test and all that is irrelevant. They've travelled a long way and have had a shorter time to recover, while we have the advantage of being at home and having a longer recuperation time," White said. 
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