Springbok coach Peter de Villiers said he is expecting a tough encounter when his team faces Italy at the Stadio Friuli in Udine on Saturday.

Speaking at a press conference in the Northern Italian city, after making four changes to the Bok starting XV that lost to France last weekend, De Villiers said the Italians had shown great improvements in recent seasons and were fast becoming a force to be reckoned with.

"The more experience they gain, the better they are becoming and they are able to compete with any team on the day," De Villiers said.

"They have a very good pack of forwards and they showed in their match against New Zealand that they will be very competitive at scrum time."

De Villiers confirmed the Springbok match 22 for Saturday, announcing four changes to the team that went down against France last weekend.

With Tendai Mtawarira and Victor Matfield being carefully managed, prop Wian du Preez, who will make his Test debut, and lock Andries Bekker have been promoted to the starting line-up. Mtawarira and Matfield are on the bench.

Adriaan Strauss starts at hooker and Danie Rossouw starts on the flank in place of Bismarck du Plessis and Schalk Burger respectively. Whilst both Du Plessis and Burger were available for selection, they have been given more time to recover from injuries sustained against France.

Meanwhile, BJ Botha joined the squad in Udine on Thursday as cover for the injured CJ van der Linde and has been included on the bench.

De Villiers said it was great to be able to call on a player of Botha's calibre in an emergency.

"We have lost almost two front rows and it is reassuring to know that there are players that we can call on to assist us," De Villiers said.

There are two more uncapped players in the 22 with flank Jean Deysel and scrumhalf Francois Hougaard included on the bench.

"We feel that this is an ideal opportunity to test Jean and Francois at Test level and hopefully they will be able to make the step up," he said.

The Bok training session at Udine Rugby Club was attended by a large crowd as well as substantial media contingent that has almost followed the team's every move since it arrived in the city on Wednesday afternoon.

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