A promising tennis player as a youngster, Smit will one day hope to follow Francois Pienaar as the only South African to hold the Webb Ellis Trophy aloft.

For now though, his aims are a little less lofty as he tries to ensure Straeuli’s new-look team dispose of the Eastern European minnows with the minimum of fuss at Aussie Stadium.

And despite lock Bakkies Botha and number eight Joe van Niekerk being the only members of last Saturday’s starting line-up at Subiaco Oval to retain their places, Smit is confident the Springboks will encounter few problems.

“As a squad, we have been together for a long time now,” he said.

“The players are capable of slotting into different positions and operating alongside different team-mates.

“We will have two or three good training sessions before the game, so we are quite relaxed about that aspect and because it is such a new team we are pretty excited about what it can produce.

“To be named captain at this stage in my career is a huge honour and I hope I can justify Rudi’s faith in me.”