Star utility back Cheslin Kolbe will be firmly thrown into the pressure cooker by the Springboks when they take on Ireland at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on Saturday night.
It is Kolbe’s first international game back from the injury he picked up against Wales in July, and he has been selected at fullback, in an exciting back three featuring Makazole Mapimpi and Kurt-Lee Arendse.
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However, the real pressure comes in the form of Kolbe also playing as back-up flyhalf to Damian Willemse, with Faf de Klerk and Willie le Roux the two back replacements on the bench.
Kolbe is no stranger to fullback or flyhalf, after most of his early career was spent playing fullback, while he has turned out on a number of occasions at flyhalf in the French Top 14.
However this will be his first international match at fullback and if he has to play at flyhalf at any stage of the game that will also be a first for him.
‘An opportunity’
“Since he started with us back in 2018 Cheslin has always been a realistic option and has trained at 15 for us often. We just have never had an opportunity to play him there,” explained Bok coach Jacques Nienaber.
“We feel that in this specific game having Cheslin at fullback will serve us best. With us going with the six-two (forwards to backs) split (on the bench) Cheslin will be our flyhalf cover.
“With us doing road maps and performance analysis on the players, although it is at Top 14 or club level, he has been utilised at fyhalf often, especially for Toulouse, when they were managing (Romain) Ntamack, he stepped in and played flyhalf for them.
“He is a very skilful player and that’s the nice thing about having the versatility of a guy like Cheslin who can play fullback, wing and flyhalf, especially when you want to utilise the six-two split.”
The Boks have also gone back to using the bomb squad, after they had shelved it for a few games during the Rugby Championship run-in, and they will be banking on their impact in what should be a massive second half against Ireland.
“The reason we are going back to the six-two split is we had a good look at the strengths of Ireland and we feel the combination of the six-two split and also the combination that we selected in the back three is going to give us the best advantage against them,” said Nienaber.
“We all know that Ireland’s strengths are their multiphase attack, their fitness and the speed of their breakdown. So we feel that selecting those combinations will serve us the best in combating that.”
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