SPONSORED | If Kolbe can't convince Bok fans of pocket rockets in France, remember this guy ...

Can proverbial pocket rockets thrive in France, especially when the country hosts the most attritional and pinnacle showpiece event of the sport? 

For the Springboks, who boast several nimble playmakers in Cheslin Kolbe, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Grant Williams and Cobus Reinach in their World Cup squad, the answer is an emphatic "yes".

After all, Kolbe - a full 1.70m and 80kg - established himself as one of the best wingers on the planet following his move to Toulouse back in 2017, a new chapter to his career at that stage that paved the way to glory in Japan in 2019.

And if there are still doubters, they need only take their cues from a former diminutive Bok dynamo and his body of work in France.

Brent Russell cruelly missed out on World Cup selection back in 2003 after being deemed to mercurial and small for that year's trip to Australia, despite a match-winning showing against the selfsame Wallabies in the Tri-Nations weeks earlier.

Four years later, Jake White's World Cup winners-elect were too settled for Russell - who did feature earlier in the coach's tenure - to get a look-in.

Yet, in late 2007, the 23-Test Bok signed for Clermont and embarked on a four-year journey where he found immense relevance and success in central France.

Despite plying his trade in a league where the going is notoriously tough, the club - admittedly littered with superb players - found a way to maximise Russell's talents.

In fact, as the man himself tells Dan Nichol in in the latest edition of Rugby Players’ Guide to France, an exciting series produced by BrightRock that gives SA rugby fans a slice of the French way of rugby and life ahead of the World Cup, the attrition was even fun.

"Yeah, so [expansive, attacking rugby] was the one thing that came