Cheslin Kolbe

Cheslin Kolbe is the player who made small great again. At around 1.71m in a sport drifting toward giants, the Springbok wing has two Rugby World Cup winner’s medals, a highlight catalogue that includes stepping the best defenders of his era in finals — the kind fans return to just to watch him do it again.

The footwork is the signature — a double-step executed at full speed in spaces where other wings need a metre, honed on Cape Flats touch fields and in sevens, where he won Olympic bronze with the Blitzboks in 2016 before fifteens fully claimed him. But the trait that changed perceptions is his completeness: Kolbe tackles above his weight class without conceding the edge, fields the high ball against men a foot taller, and has become one of South Africa’s designated pressure kickers — including charge-downs and clutch touch-finders that have decided knockout matches.

His club journey tracks the modern market: Western Province, a transformative spell at Toulouse where French rugby fell for him completely, Toulon, and then Japan with Tokyo Sungoliath, where the lighter domestic schedule is managed around Springbok windows. Rassie Erasmus has been explicit that Japan-based players remain first-class citizens in his selection, and Kolbe’s Test form has not dipped for the move.

Now in his thirties, every major series is framed as a possible farewell tour, which only adds occasion to the four-Test Greatest Rivalry showdown with New Zealand — the fixture in which he scored the 2019 final’s iconic try against England’s heirs apparent.