South Africa coach Nick Mallett is hugely impressed by the transformation that his rival Graham Henry has achieved for Wales ahead of day's one-off Test between the nations in Cardiff.

Mallett has a suspicion that the Welsh improvement under Henry could result in a first-ever win for Wales over the Springboks.

"I have been very surprised at the change in Wales," said Mallett.

"A year ago this weekend we took Wales apart and scored 96 points. Then in the first few months of Henry's term as coach we struggled frantically to beat them at Wembley last November with two late scores. We should have lost.

Mallett has made seven changes from the team that rattled up a century and stresses that his theme is attack. The skills of Stefan Terblanche who has 15 tries in 14 Tests and Pieter Rossouw with 18 in 23, are sure to be call upon. nailed 18 in 23. It is an important game for South Africa but the date they most want to be playing in Cardiff is in the World Cup final in the first weekend of November.

WALES: S Howarth (Sale); G Thomas (Cardiff), M Taylor (Swansea), A Bateman (Northampton), D James (Pontypridd); N Jenkins (Pontypridd), R Howley (Cardiff, capt); P Rog- ers (Newport), G Jenkins (Swansea), D Young (Cardiff), C Quinnell (Cardiff), C Wyatt (Llanelli), C Charvis (Swansea), B Sinkinson (Neath), S Quinnell (Llanelli). Replacements: L Davies (Cardiff), S Jones (Llanelli), D Llewellyn (Ebbw Vale), M Voyle (Llanelli), B Evans (Swansea), A Lewis (Cardiff), J Humphreys (Cardiff).

SOUTH AFRICA: Terblanche, P Muller, J Mulder, P Rossouw; B Van Straaten, W Swanepoel; R Kempson, N Drotske, C Visagie, S Boome, K Otto, C Krige, R Erasmus, G Teichmann (capt). Replacements: B Paulse, G Du Toit, D Von Hoesslin, A Vos, A Venter, O Le Roux, C Marais.