Mo'unga returns to All Blacks fold as Springboks shuffle for Johannesburg showdown
Richie Mo'unga will start at fly-half for New Zealand against the Lions in Johannesburg on Tuesday, marking his return to All Blacks contention after a spell in Japan that had made him ineligible for Test selection.
Mo'unga was New Zealand's first-choice stand-off (the playmaker who wears the number 10 shirt and directs the attack) during the 2023 Rugby World Cup, but his subsequent move to Japanese club rugby ruled him out of All Blacks selection under New Zealand's policy of picking only domestically based players. He has since signed for Canterbury and the Crusaders, and an injury to Billy Proctor opened the door for his recall, according to BBC Sport.
The motivation to return to the Test arena, Mo'unga said, came from an unlikely setting: watching a Six Nations match in a Japanese karaoke bar last year. That moment of longing, thousands of miles from home, set in motion the chain of events that has him back in the black jersey this week.
His return comes in the middle of a four-match series between the Springboks and All Blacks, marketed as "Rugby's Greatest Rivalry." New Zealand are chasing a 2-0 lead after winning the opening encounter.
The All Blacks' starting XV to face the Lions — the Johannesburg-based provincial side, not to be confused with the British & Irish Lions touring team — reads: B Barrett; Fineanganofo, Ioane, Tavatavanawai, Narawa; Mo'unga, Hotham; Lauaki, Taukei'aho, Tosi, Darry, Tuipulotu, Sititi, Blackadder, Ta'eiloa.
Meanwhile, South Africa have made significant changes to their side for the second Test. Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who started at fly-half in the first Test, has been dropped from the matchday squad, as Planet Rugby reported.
Feinberg-Mngomezulu's demotion is a sharp turn for the 22-year-old, who has been one of the Springboks' rising stars. He kicked a penalty from 53 metres against Wales in June 2024 — a strike that announced his arrival on the international stage — and contributed 14 first-half points in South Africa's win over Japan at Wembley in November 2025. He and Eben Etzebeth were the only two players retained from South Africa's most recent Test against Argentina when the Boks faced the All Blacks in Johannesburg, per AllBlacks.com.
In his place, the Springboks are expected to reshuffle their backline. Head coach Rassie Erasmus, who had previously been undecided over whether captain Siya Kolisi would feature, has also been managing milestones for two of his most experienced forwards. Prop Ox Nche and flanker Pieter-Steph du Toit were both in line for special career milestones in the Saturday team announcement, the Springboks confirmed on Facebook.
Erasmus's selection in this series has been characteristically unpredictable. For the first Test he had named Feinberg-Mngomezulu at fly-half, a call that followed a build-up in which the young playmaker and scrum-half Morne van den Berg had been paired at halfback for a June 2025 match against the Barbarians — a fixture that served as a warm-up before the All Blacks series, according to SA Rugby.
For South Africa, dropping a fly-half who started the series opener is a bold move between matches. For New Zealand, welcoming back a World Cup-era number 10 gives them a proven conductor at the heart of the attack. Both decisions will be tested under the kind of pressure that only this fixture generates.
