Wales v South Africa
What the record holds about this fixture, beside what the model says about it.
0 – 73
29 November 2025Principality Stadium, Cardiff
What the model says about Wales v South Africa
- Kick-off
- 15:10 UTC
- Elevation
- 9 m
- Temperature
- 7.5 °C
- Rainfall
- 9.7 mm
- Wind
- 22 km/h
Daily means at the ground, from the ERA5 reanalysis via Open-Meteo.
Beside a name: points of margin the side has beaten its own rating by with him in the squad, against the same period without him. 20 of the 46 named here have enough matches on both sides to measure.
Wales
- 1Gareth Thomas
- 2Dewi Lake-5.3
- 3Keiron Assiratti
- 4Ben Carter
- 5Rhys Davies
- 6Taine Plumtree
- 7Alex Mann+5.6
- 8Aaron Wainwright+1.1
- 9Kieran Hardy+1.3
- 10Dan Edwards
- 11Rio Dyer+5.1
- 12Joe Hawkins
- 13Joe Roberts
- 14Ellis Mee
- 15Blair Murray
Replacements
- 16Brodie Coghlan
- 17Danny Southworth
- 18Chris Coleman
- 19James Ratti
- 20Morgan Morse
- 21Reuben Morgan-Williams
- 22Callum Sheedy
- 23Ben Thomas
South Africa
- 1Gerhard Steenekamp+3.4
- 2Johan Grobbelaar
- 3Wilco Louw-1.7
- 4Jean Kleyn
- 5Ruan Nortjé
- 6Siya Kolisi+2.4
- 7Franco Mostert-1.0
- 8Jasper Wiese+5.9
- 9Morné van den Berg
- 10Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu+5.9
- 11Canan Moodie+6.3
- 12André Esterhuizen+3.1
- 13Damian de Allende-0.1
- 14Ethan Hooker
- 15Damian Willemse-5.4
Replacements
- 16Bongi Mbonambi-3.5
- 17Zachary Porthen
- 18Asenathi Ntlabakanye
- 19Eben Etzebeth-12.7
- 20Marco van Staden-5.4
- 21Ben-Jason Dixon
- 22Kwagga Smith-8.0
- 23Cobus Reinach+4.7
Measured against the side's point-in-time rating, so opposition and venue are already removed, and over the years between a player's first and last cap rather than his side's whole history. None of the 778 players assessed has a gap larger than chance explains once the number tested is corrected for — a rating already contains the players who usually play for a side, so what a team sheet can add to it is small. Team selection is not an input to the forecast on this page. The full table and the method.
Possession and territory
| Wales | Measure | South Africa |
|---|---|---|
| 41.0% | Possession | 59.0% |
| 42.0% | Territory | 58.0% |
Attack
| Wales | Measure | South Africa |
|---|---|---|
| 69 | Carries | 131 |
| 147m | Carry metres | 506m |
| 3 | Clean breaks | 12 |
| 10 | Defenders beaten | 25 |
| 3 | Offloads | 5 |
| 86 | Passes | 157 |
Defence
| Wales | Measure | South Africa |
|---|---|---|
| 179 | Tackles made | 92 |
| 79.0% | Tackle success | 85.0% |
| 25 | Missed tackles(fewer is better) | 10 |
| 9 | Dominant tackles | 12 |
| 3 | Turnovers won | 7 |
Set pieces
| Wales | Measure | South Africa |
|---|---|---|
| 100.0% | Lineout success | 100.0% |
| 11 | Lineouts won | 20 |
| 71.0% | Scrum success | 83.0% |
| 5 | Scrums won | 5 |
Breakdown
| Wales | Measure | South Africa |
|---|---|---|
| 89.0% | Ruck success | 98.0% |
| 55 | Rucks won | 94 |
| 3 | Mauls won | 4 |
Kicking
| Wales | Measure | South Africa |
|---|---|---|
| 28 | Kicks from hand | 29 |
| 572m | Kick metres | 729m |
Discipline
| Wales | Measure | South Africa |
|---|---|---|
| 16 | Penalties conceded(fewer is better) | 10 |
| 2 | Yellow cards(fewer is better) | — |
| — | Red cards(fewer is better) | 1 |
| 3 | Knock-ons(fewer is better) | 13 |
Scoring
| Wales | Measure | South Africa |
|---|---|---|
| — | Tries | 11 |
| — | Conversions | 9 |
Context beside the forecast, never inside it. Weather, team selection and match statistics are not model inputs, so a published probability does not move because any of them changed.