Back in the city where he made his Test debut, Cheslin Kolbe is looking for better fortunes when the Springboks tackle the Wallabies in Brisbane.
The Springboks open the Rugby Championship against the Wallabies on Saturday at a sold-out Suncorp Stadium, where the two-time defending world champions have won just once since 1965.
Kolbe made his debut off the bench in Brisbane in 2018, when the Springboks suffered a 23-18 defeat. A week later, the winger scored his first Test try to help the Springboks claim a historic victory over the All Blacks in Wellington.
Back in the Queensland capital for the first time since his debut, Kolbe is excited to show what the Bok backs can do under a new attacking mentor in former All Blacks flyhalf Tony Brown.
“I made my Test debut here in Brisbane,” Kolbe said. “It wasn’t a good result then, but it’s good to be here. We do have a new coaching staff and a lot of new players that have come in.
“That’s quite exciting, but we need to stick to what we’ve done each week and execute our plans.
“Hopefully, once the forwards get some go-forward ball, we’ll get the opportunity to exploit things out wide.”
READ: All Blacks equals awesome in the Rugby Championship
While the South Africa’s southern hemisphere trophy drought is on Kolbe’s mind, all eyes are on ensuring that the Boks finally put their Brisbane hoodoo to bed.
“We haven’t won a Rugby Championship since 2019, so it will be unbelievable to get another one,” Kolbe said. “But, for us as a team, we’re just looking forward to this coming Saturday. We also don’t have a very good history here.
“Also though, we haven’t played them a lot down here recently, so we can’t look too far ahead of ourselves.
“We just going to put our focus purely on Saturday and try to deliver our best performance.”
Photo: Jono Searle/Getty Images
The post Kolbe returns to roots to bust Brisbane blues appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.
Src: sarugbymag.co.za
