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Watch: Cheslin Kolbe's Toulon debut against Zebre
By Sam Smith
Toulon's star Springbok winger Cheslin Kolbe made his much-awaited debut for his new club after leaving heavyweights Toulouse in the off-season.
The 28-year-old South African hasn't been able to play for the first four months of the season, but made his first start on the left wing against the Italian club Zebre in the Challenge Cup on Friday night.
Kolbe showed flashes of his game-breaking ability, showing off the trademark footwork to threaten the defence on multiple occasions but Zebre kept him largely in check. He wasn't able to get any try-scoring opportunities on the night.
His best chance came in the 42nd minute but he was chased down from behind and the ball was dislodged as he tried to offload back inside to his support.
Club captain and French international Baptiste Serin praised Kolbe's communication on the pitch and said that whenever 'he touches the ball, there is fire'. Serin said the plan was for Kolbe to play 60-minutes but he ended up playing the full match after moving to centre to cover an injury to Julien Hériteau.
"I found him clean and good in communication. You can't see it but he communicates a lot. Now he needs to move on ," said Baptiste Serin in his post-match comments on BeInSport.
"We feel someone reliable who will bring us consistency. You feel that, as soon as he touches the ball, there is fire, " reassures Serin.
Toulon ultimately cruised to a 28-14 win but will have a much tougher assignment when the Top 14 resumes against the Bordeaux-Bègles who are top of the league table after 12 games.
Watch Cheslin Kolbe's debut for Toulon:
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Latest Comments
Yeah me too. I think the Welsh have it in them to make it a contest in the first half. Give the boks' second stringers a headache. Disrupting lineouts is one area the welsh could cause problems. Bok lineouts have been subpar.
And then fronting up in the collisions and at the rucks. If the boks get the ascendancy there too early, it could be a hiding. Jaden hendrikse had a tough game against the Scots - who were very good at disrupting the boks flow. The welsh would have taken note of this i'm sure.
But the bok bench will finish the welsh off i'm afraid.
Go to commentsYes, certainly. As an AB fan happy to be included in that top 3 of "matches that are routinely decided by one score" now, we were well outside that for a few years.
They have not had enough games yet. You can't undo so many poor years just like that. Asking for miracles like SA losing is not the way to get back to number 1.
They might get there as those bad years filter out of the rankings but it's guarenteed to be great fun going back and forth with SA once that happens.
Admittedly Foster only really had one bad year (21/22 season), but that's more likely because COVID stopped a lot of tough games from being played, and effected the other countries they did play far more than themselves.
A real shame we both don't get to see it unfold first with our regions teams in SR!
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