Springbok double World Cup winner Cheslin Kolbe’s decision to return home from the start of next season to play for the DHL Stormers will bring something that their game model desperately requires but has lacked this season - pacy strike power out wide.
Kolbe has long made it known he’d like to play the final years of his career where it all started, meaning in the Cape, and that will become reality. Although it has yet to be officially announced, it is understood the deal was finalised at the weekend, and Kolbe has subsequently confirmed his homecoming on social media, describing the decision as “one of the most emotional and difficult” of his career.
His return to Cape Town will mean Kolbe joins fellow current Springbok match-day squad members Siya Kolisi and Wilco Louw in becoming Stormers returnees next season.
All three have been on the Stormers and Western Province books in the past - Kolisi had played more than 100 games for the Stormers when he left for the Hollywoodbets Sharks in 2021, Louw’s powerful scrumming was the anvil around which WP’s 2017 Currie Cup final win was based before he left for Harlequins and Kolbe left for France before he had played for the Boks.
Kolisi, who is understood to be returning to Cape Town for significantly less money than he was getting in Durban and is effectively on his SA Rugby money plus a game-by-game deal, will bring additional leadership. Louw will add to the already enviable front row resources at the Stormers’ disposal, with fellow Bok tightheads Neethling Fouche and Zachary Porthen also on the Stormers’ books, while there is also a chance that Frans Malherbe will play again.
It has been the strike running out wide off transition that the Stormers have lacked most this season, however, something that the anticipated return of former Blitzbok star Seabelo Senatla for Saturday’s Vodacom URC quarterfinal against Cardiff at DHL Stadium should rectify. If he stays fit, next season Senatla and Leolin Zas will be joined on the wing roster by another pace freak in Kolbe, who has fulfilled the potential that the then WP Vodacom Cup coach John Dobson said he had when he first selected him to senior provincial rugby way back in 2012.
There were some raised eyebrows when Dobson introduced Kolbe to the local media by describing him as a future global superstar but there will be no eyebrows raised when he makes his emotional return to his home club as a double World Cup winner and a player who arguably paved the way for a new kind of wing, with France and Bordeaux-Begles match winger Louis Bielle-Biarrey fast becoming a new poster-boy for the Kolbe-style wing.
NOT FOLLOWING GALACTICO CONTRACTING MODEL
Kolbe will add some superstar quality to the Stormers but the recruitment of the trio of Boks for next season is not an indicator that the Stormers are embarking on the Sharks’ type of recruiting model of the recent past, meaning a focus on Galactico-type marquee players. Kolisi and Louw are both effectively moving for family reasons, while the same could probably be said for Kolbe, who is understood to be returning for far less than the massive amount of money that was on the table for him when the Stormers made him an offer not long after they won the URC for the first time in 2022.
It is understood that SA Rugby’s Poni (Player of National Interest) money plus third-party payments contributed to the feasibility of Kolbe doing what he made no secret of wanting to do in a recent interview with Kickoff magazine. At the time he was poised to sign on for a contract extension with Suntory, his Japanese club, and his hoped-for return to the Stormers was way in the future, but clearly the yearning for home became too strong and his managing agency, Roc-Nation, helped out with the transfer fee.
The Stormers’ biggest priority right now is beating Cardiff in Saturday’s URC playoff game, but when it comes to Stormers director of rugby John Dobson’s Project 2029 and their chances of challenging both in the URC and Champions Cup next season, the cards are falling into place.
Salmaan Moerat and Ruben van Heerden are both in their final weeks as Stormers players as they prepare to move to La Rochelle and Montpellier respectively, but their loss will be partly made up for by the recruitment of experienced Argentina Pumas international lock Tomas Lavinini, who is understood to be a done deal for a move to Cape Town from the Highlanders.
According to Stormers sources, the only aspect of Lavnini’s contract that is still to be finalised is the timing of his availability for the Cape team. If he plays for Argentina in the forthcoming international season he will only be available after the conclusion of the Nations Cup at the end of November.