The Springboks will face Wales, the current Six Nations champions, for the first time since their Rugby World Cup pool match in New Zealand in 2011 and will return to the Millennium Stadium for the first time in almost three years.

The tour also includes Tests against Scotland at Murrayfield in Edinburgh (Sunday 17 November) and France at the Stade de France in Paris (Saturday 23 November).

The squad left South Africa on Saturday evening and flew from Johannesburg to Heathrow in London before embarking on a two hour bus journey to Cardiff.

“We’re all very excited to be here and we are looking forward to the challenge of playing three very tough Test matches on this tour,” said Springbok captain Jean de Villiers.

“At this stage, we’re not looking past the Wales Test, which promises to be an epic match. We had three hard days of training in Johannesburg before we left, but the weather was warm and sunny.

“As we drove into Wales earlier today, it started raining and we’re expecting similar conditions this week. We’ll adapt to the weather conditions this week, but we still want to go out there and play positive attacking rugby. Playing the Six Nations champions will be a big challenge but that is why we all love playing Test rugby.”

The rest of the overseas-based players will join the squad in Cardiff later on Sunday and the Springboks will have their first training session in Wales on Monday. The team for Saturday’s Test will be named on Wednesday.