South Africa’s 30-14 win over Wales at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday came at a helse cost, with wing Cheslin Kolbe expected to miss the start of this year’s Rugby Championship.
The Springboks face New Zealand in the championship opener on August 6, with Kolbe leaving the field against Wales’s Dragons on Saturday with a suspected fractured jaw.
Expected to be sidelined for a minimum of six weeks, Kolbe will miss the first match against the Kiwis at the Mbombela Stadium.
But daai is later se worries, as the Springboks will be celebrating now after bagging the series win 2-1 against the visiting Welsh.
With New Zealand having lost 2-1 to Ireland and Australia going down by the same series scoreline to England on Saturday, Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber says of their win: “We had a specific plan [for the series] and things didn’t always go according to that plan. But winning the series was one of the big things we were trying to achieve and luckily it worked out for us.”
The Springboks could be without Cheslin Kolbe for the Rugby Championship after he left the field early with a suspected broken jaw in yesterday's win over Wales.
— SuperSport 🏆 (@SuperSportTV) July 17, 2022
The Boks outscored their visitors three tries to one and could have had more, with three touchdowns disallowed.
It’s these chances that Nienaber wants his team to take, saying: “I think there’s a lot for us to work on. We created opportunities like last week which we didn’t capitalise on…”
Wales coach Wayne Pivac, meanwhile, is happy with his team’s performance on the tour. Having lost the first Test 32-29 at Loftus Versfeld, they won the second 13-12 in Bloemfontein to level the series, with Pivac saying: “It was a big step in the right direction. When we get together again for the autumn series, we’ll be less than 12 months out from the Rugby World Cup, so we need to build on this tour…
“We’re very pleased that the positives outweigh the negatives.”