All Black veteran prop Greg Somerville anticipates a tough encounter up front against the Springboks this weekend, though noted the absence of an opponent he rates amongst the world's best.

One of the All Blacks more unassuming figures, the 62 capped front rower was fairly outspoken on Monday about the absence of World Cup winner BJ Botha from the Springboks Tri-Nations squad, a player he feels is one of the best scrummagers in world rugby.

"He's definitely one of the best [scrummagers] in the world in my opinion," Somerville told this website on Monday.

"So I'm not too sure why he wouldn't be there [in the national setup]," he added.

BJ Botha was one of the unsung heroes from the 2007 Rugby World Cup, venerated for his destructive scrumming tactics which have been the core of his game at both Super 14 and national levels.

Botha performed solidly for South Africa against Wales in June, though has been one of a handful of coach Peter de Villiers' shock omissions to his favoured starting XV - though Botha has not even found a berth in the 30-man squad, with De Villiers preferring to blood some of the younger players up front.

"Beast [Mtawarira] has been going pretty well, he's taken his chance," Somerville said.

"CJ's [van de Linde] going pretty well at tighthead too. With him and BJ [Botha] you've got two great tightheads, but BJ is definitely one of the best scrummagers in the world and I'm not too sure why he isn't there.

"He [BJ Botha] gives you a more solid platform every time, he gets your [South Africa's] right hand shoulder up when he's there.

"I'm not saying that they're not managing to achieve that at the moment, but he's [Botha] definitely one of the best in the world at it," Somerville added.

The 30-year-old Kiwi, who is headed for Gloucester come the end of his 2008 All Black season, did however anticipate the "usual" physical onslaught from his Springbok counterparts come Saturday's Tri-Nations showdown at Newlands.

"It's always a pretty tough encounter against the Springboks, we're expecting the usual really."

"I thought they [the Springboks] scrummed really well against Argentina so they'll have a lot of confidence going into this game.

Reflecting on his team's emphatic turnaround in the return Bledisloe Cup and Tri-Nations Test against the Wallabies, Somerville believed the up and down nature of the Tri-Nations can be put down purely to each side's mental approach on the day.

"I don't think it has anything to do with personnel changes," said Somerville.

"In the second Test against the Springboks they [the Boks] raised their game a wee bit, they were better prepared against us.

"In the first Test against the Aussies our minds weren't on the job as much as they needed to be.

"It's just really an attitude shift. We changed a couple of tactics from the first Test [against Australia] which the boys played to pretty well, but most of it was upstairs.

"We made silly mistakes really, so it didn't take all that much to change things around," Somerville added.

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