Cheslin Kolbe has spoken about the benefits of his stint with the Blitzboks and has urged Springboks hopefuls to follow his lead.
The elusive outside back represented the South African sevens team in 2015 and 2016 before heading off to France, signing with Toulouse.
Kolbe believes those two years with the Blitzboks had a massive impact on his overall game and has encouraged other players to take up the opportunity to play the shorter format of the game.
Cheslin Kolbe: Sevens taught me so much
The speedster is one of many players who have represented South Africa in the shorter format of the sport and have since gone on to become a Springbok. That list includes Kwagga Smith, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Deon Fourie and Rosko Specman, whilst the likes of Cornal Hendricks, Gio Aplon, Juan de Jongh, Ryan Kankowski, Francois Hougaard and Warren Whiteley have represented South Africa in both formats of the game.
According to the now double World Cup winner, sevens improved both his attacking and defensive ability, which made him a better XVs player. Not only that, but it also made him strong mentally.
“Sevens has taught me so much,” Kolbe told Steven Kitshoff in an interview on the For the Love of Rugby podcast.
“From a mental point of view, the training that we had to go through, the way you have to push your body, it was intense.
“Then the exposure from making one-on-one tackles in defence and your attacking abilities in space.
“If I can encourage everyone who wants to make a career out of rugby, go to the sevens academy circuit to learn and develop, because you grow a lot as a player, and obviously making that transition from sevens to XVs was tough because it’s a lot less space.”
It helped my defence
The one-on-one defensive exposure in the sevens game is something that really helped Kolbe improve in that aspect of the 15-a-side game. During his early career, his defence was often cited as the reason why he was repeatedly overlooked for the Springboks.
“There are a lot more bigger guys; it’s physical. I struggled quite a lot because I lost a lot of weight at the sevens, but from a running and conditioning point of view, I felt very good,” he continued.
“So it was literally like finding that balance whenever I came from sevens back into 15s or back from 15s to sevens – it has made me a much better player all around.
“I’m not the biggest. I needed to make sure that I worked on my defence, work on my one-on-one tackling because whenever I missed a tackle, I got criticised.
“That’s definitely sharpened my defence, and just using those one-on-one opportunities in 15s and exploiting that definitely helped me.
“There are a lot of guys I can give credit to, from coaches to players that’s been experienced, that helped me grow in the seventh circuit. Neil Powell, Paul Treu, Frankie Horne, and Kyle Brown – there are a lot of guys I can name.”