Flawless Cheslin Kolbe trusting the process during kicking duties

The winger has emerged as the Boks' chief sharpshooter off the tee for the series, nailing 11 from 11 kicks. This included seven from seven in the Boks' 33-26 win over the All Blacks in Cape Town on Saturday.

Flyhavles and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Manie Libbok and Handre Pollard - the latter of whom is yet to feature in the series - are superb off the tee in their own right, but Bok management has taken the pressure off their shoulders by handing Kolbe the kicking tee.

Should Pollard feature in the remaining two Tests, the 2023 Rugby World Cup hero will very likely take over. But until then, the ever-humble Kolbe is happy to contribute.

"Yeah, I'm enjoying the kicking duties," he told the press on Saturday night.

"It's obviously a bit of stress, a bit of pressure. But at the end of the day, we are playing this game because we love it. And for me, if I'm confident, comfortable to contribute to the team in any way, I'm more than happy to do so. Yeah, it's something that I've been working on and I'll continue to work on.

"Obviously you as a player, you don't want to miss a kick, but you don't have those intentions. But you just have to trust your process. And for me, it's just staying on top of it. Make sure that I continue to learn from the coaches, especially Tony [Brown] who has been helping me quite a lot.

"It [me kicking] won't always be like this. It's just contributing to the team's success at the end of the day."

The Boks opted for a more pragmatic approach in the second Test. It was glaringly obvious that they did not convert the opportunities they created at Ellis Park. So this time around, if points were on offer, Kolbe shot for goal and his accuracy kept the scoreboard ticking over.

In a match where the tourists were chasing a converted try at the death to sneak a draw, Kolbe's 18 points off the tee were vital.

"We knew that last week there were a few opportunities that we didn't capitalise on,' he reflected.

"Tonight we we we needed to make sure that if there's points on offer, we needed to take them because it's a Test match. [Obviously] three points is less than five points from scoring a try, [but] every point that's on offer we knew we needed to take because it's Test match rugby. You just try and build the pressure."

Looking ahead to the crucial third Test at Soccer City in Soweto this week, Kolbe knows the Boks are not the finished product and revealed there is still much work to be done on the training field.

"We can definitely improve," added the 32-year-old.

"We just need to remember what that feeling was last week when we didn't get the win. We just need to make sure that we focus on ourselves and also know what they can do.

"It's just about preparing well to go into a game confident. It's 1-1 now and there's two games to go and we just need to look forward to that. There's pressure, but we also need to understand as players that we've got a talent that we've been blessed with and we need to enjoy it. We need to enjoy the occasion and I think that's the most important thing for me as a player: to make sure that I enjoy my ride and enjoy going out on the field and representing my country."

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