Where does Cheslin Kolbe rank in the elite goalkicking wingers' club?

Cheslin Kolbe has been perfect from the kicking tee during Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series with New Zealand, nailing four from four in the first Test and seven from seven in the second. Not bad for a player who’d only been a bit-part Test goalkicker up until then.

Due to the presence of Handrè Pollard and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu in the team, Kolbe did not take a single shot at goal in 2024 and 2025, and was only called upon seven times during the southern hemisphere section of this year’s Nations Championship (succeeding with five kicks). That said, he has found his rhythm with his club Suntory Sungoliath in Japan’s Rugby League One, finishing this season as top points scorer

In 52 Tests for South Africa, Kolbe has scored 170 points – 110 from his 22 tries and 60 from 12 conversions and 12 penalties, and with the way he has been performing in front of the poles, kicks could become the 32-year-old’s most profitable source of points before his stellar career in out.

Kolbe kicked three points against Ireland in his first of two starts at full-back in a 19-16 defeat to Ireland in Dublin in November 2022, but the rest of the points he’s kicked in a Springbok jersey have been as a winger. That could change on Saturday, however, as he has been selected for the third Test at 15 in the absence of Damian Willemse.

Goalkicking wingers are few and far between in the pro era, although esteemed rugby historian John Griffiths has reminded us that Jonny Wilkinson’s first kick at goal for England was a last-minute sub for Mike Catt on the right wing against Ireland at Twickenham in 1998; he missed a difficult touchline conversion at the end of the match.

Kolbe is the standout example, as things stand. Trawling the archives, it is hard to think of another specialist winger since the game went ‘open’ with as many points as the pocket rocket has purely from kicks at goal. Most of the others were what you would consider utility or hybrid backs.

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Argentina’s Emiliano Boffelli scored 340 points – including match-winning performances in two of Argentina’s most-famous victories against England and New Zealand – before a nerve problem in his back ended his Test career post-RWC 2023. But of his 57 starts, 32 were on the wing and 25 at full-back.

Mirco Bergamasco was known equally as a centre and a wing, the Italian starting out wide in a fraction under half his 89 Tests, which also featured a short run at full-back and yielded him 256 points.

The same applies to Fiji’s Nemani Nadolo, who once kicked 22 points in a Test against Canada in his third-ever start on the wing in a RWC 2015 warm-up, and Wallaby hotshot Stirling Mortlock, who started off life as a Test player as a prolific goalkicking wing before shifting to centre and conceding the tee to Matt Burke.

Australian-born James Pritchard was a points-scoring machine for Canada, and while a good few of them were scored as a winger, his primary role was full-back, which also rules Leigh Halfpenny out of the equation. Halfpenny landed a penalty on debut against South Africa in 2008 and 42 of his 801 points for Wales came in his early days as an international winger.

Scotland legend Chris Paterson kicked more points with an 11 on his back than any other winger in the pro era (well over 300), and for a time in 2007, was virtually Scotland’s only source of points. But, again, Paterson is best known for being Scotland’s last line of defence at full-back rather than as a gas man.

Japan’s Toru Kurihara amassed 342 points in his Test career, 242 of them from kicks at goal. But as was the case with the others, he doesn’t count in our eyes as he spent a fair bit of time at full-back and also the majority of his points came against sub-standard opposition such as Chinese Taipei, including 30 in one match.

So, based on pro players who have played 90% or more of their games on the wing against Tier 1/2 nations, Kolbe could be the first to kick more than 100 points in Test rugby if he retains the faith of Rassie Erasmus as South Africa’s principal goalkicker. Given his recent form, it would took a brave man to take the tee off him.