JP Pietersen is back from Japan to play for the Springboks. (Duif du Toit, Gallo)
The seamless transition from one season to the next continues apace. Many of the current Springbok squad were contesting the Currie Cup final two weeks ago. Now they face three Test matches in as many weeks, after which a group of players will stay in Europe to join their club sides.
Those who return to South Africa will have a week off before returning to their franchises to prepare for the 2014 Super Rugby competition, which begins in the second week of February.
Is it any wonder that careers are getting shorter?
The first Test is against Wales in Cardiff on Saturday and form lines suggest that it will be the harshest examination of the trip north.
For one thing, the Wales team includes nine of the British and Irish Lions side that beat the Wallabies in June. They are the current Six Nations champions and have won three Grand Slams in the past eight years.
Add to this the fact that they are coached by Warren Gatland, who masterminded the Lions series win, and Heyneke Meyer should have no trouble motivating his team.
History favours the Boks: 26 tests since 1906 have yielded but one win for Wales – in the match that officially opened the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff in 1999. But recently there has been little to choose between the sides, with the Boks winning by five, three, four and one point in their past four meetings.
The teams last locked horns in Wellington during the 2011 World Cup and South Africa's 17-16 win was a nervy affair, with Wales missing two kicks at goal in the last 10 minutes that could have clinched the contest.
Remarkably, the team announced on Wednesday has the same back line as the one that took the field in 2011, with the exception of Frans Steyn, who is replaced at fullback by Pat Lambie.
Meyer has concluded that the standard of play in Japan is by no means as poor as many believe, and has rushed the recalled JP Pietersen and Jaque Fourie back into the starting line-up. With the possibility that Lambie could move to flyhalf in the second half to accommodate Willie le Roux at fullback, this is a back line for the ages.
To show that Meyer has not simply relied on the team assembled by his predecessor, however, only Tendai Mtawarira remains out of the pack that started in Wellington.
A battle to relish
And it is up front where the Boks will be tested by a Welsh eight full of talent and experience. Captain Sam Warburton is the jewel in the crown, and his battle for the loose ball with Francois Louw and Bismarck du Plessis will be one to relish.
The time is coming when the Bok loose trio of Louw, Willem Alberts and Duane Vermeulen will be exposed for a lack of pace, but this tour is probably not the moment. The tight five, however, looks vulnerable with Test debutant Frans Malherbe a long way from the finished article at tight head, and recalled lock Flip van der Merwe the kind of one-dimensional player who could be badly exposed by the experienced Alun Wyn Jones.
The good news is that the gifted Pieter-Steph du Toit is on the bench and should get a significant blooding in the second half. Du Toit has been injured for much of the season and did his burgeoning reputation no favours with a string of lacklustre performances on his return to the Sharks side.
But his man of the match display in the Currie Cup final suggested two things: one, that he was fully fit at last and two, that he thrives on the big occasion. If this tour does no more than cement Du Toit and Eben Etzebeth as the long-term replacements for Victor Matfield and Bakkies Botha, it will have achieved something significant.
It is quite possible that South Africa will begin with defeat. This Welsh team is good enough and it has been a long hard season for the Boks. But the fresh blood provided by Fourie, Pietersen and Lambie, the latter back in the starting team at long last, should be enough to scramble a win, albeit a narrow one.