New Zealand v South Africa Wellington, Saturday, 8.35am, Sky Sports 2

Jean de Villiers may be celebrating his 100th Test match but all eyes will be on the performance of young outhalf Handre Pollard when South Africa face New Zealand in the fourth round of the Rugby Championship in Wellington on Saturday morning.

The 20-year-old Pollard was surprisingly named to start in place of the more experienced Morne Steyn, who piloted the side last week in Perth where a late yellow card opened the door for Australia to sneak a 24-23 victory.

Springboks coach Heyneke Meyer, however, has always had his eyes on next year’s World Cup and the chance to throw Pollard in against the All Blacks will give him an opportunity to see how far he needs to develop before the global showpiece.

“I have a lot of confidence in Handre and I want to see what he can do at the highest level,” Meyer told reporters. “He’s a guy who I believe could play in the World Cup and play a huge part in the World Cup.

“He’s a different type of player, but you have to do something different if you want to beat New Zealand.

“We want to evolve and play some attractive rugby, so hopefully it’s a dry field and we can play some attacking rugby.”

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen is well aware of the threat an attack-minded Springboks team would pose, having watched them throw caution to the wind in Johannesburg last year.“They were pretty good at it last year,” Hansen said. “They almost beat us doing it last year and he has picked a side that looks like it wants to play.”

Outhalf Aaron Cruden is one of three changes Hansen has made to the side who beat the Pumas 28-9 in Napier last week. Lock Jeremy Thrush gets his opportunity to push for a more permanent role after he impressed as a replacement for Sam Whitelock last week, while flanker Steven Luatua has improved his fitness after being publicly criticised by Hansen earlier this season.