Cheslin Kolbe has broken his jaw for the second time in his career, and the injury has left him unable to eat solid food for weeks, forcing the Springbok wing onto a strict liquid diet that has seen him blend everything from steak to sausage to chocolate.
Kolbe sustained the injury early in the third Test against the All Blacks in Soweto when his jaw connected with a knee, cutting short what had been an outstanding series in which he served as the Boks' primary goal-kicker. The injury has delayed his return to the Stormers.
Speaking on former teammate Steven Kitshoff's podcast For the Love of Rugby South Africa, Kolbe described it as "the most frustrating injury to have," detailing three weeks of facial swelling, pain and the particular torment of watching his family eat while he drank meals through a straw.
"Sometimes I'll just walk out of the house and walk around while the family's eating because it's frustrating," he said. "It's the second time that I broke my jaw."
With his wife and children having remained in South Africa during his season with Suntory Sungoliath in Japan, Kolbe is drawing on the enforced downtime as an opportunity to be present for school runs, extramurals and the everyday rhythms of family life he missed while abroad. "The time I get at home is, I don't think time or money or anything can buy that," he said.
Kolbe also shed light on his emergence as a reliable goal-kicker, a role that surprised many supporters when he took over the duties during the Nations Championship and retained them through the All Blacks series. He revealed the foundation was laid in primary school and continued through high school and his time in France, where he stepped into kicking duties at Toulouse and RC Toulon whenever players were away on Six Nations duty.
The decisive development, however, came in his final season in Japan. "Taking over as the first-choice kicker definitely helped me a lot," he said. "The amount of work I've put in with the coaches in Japan, just tweaking small things that could make me more accurate — because I was literally all over the show; I was never guaranteed that it was going over."