Johannesburg: He has a short but impressive rugby resume. He has a winner’s medal from the 2012 IRB Junior World Championship, has played Super Rugby, captained the Junior Springboks to a final at this year’s IRB World Junior Championships in New Zealand, deservedly awarded the IRB Junior Player of the Year this year, made his Springbok debut and partly engineered the plan that saw the Springboks end the All Blacks 22-match unbeaten run.
It is official. Handré Pollard is not only the “real deal” that Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer has been crowing about for the past two months, but he is the Springboks No 1 flyhalf going into next year’s Rugby World Cup.
After Saturday’s heroics by Pollard at flyhalf which helped the Springboks to their first victory against the All Blacks in Meyer’s era as coach, nobody can now disagree with Meyer or doubt that the Springbok No 10 jersey has finally found a new owner.
It was an open secret that among the many things Meyer had on his wish list this year was a flyhalf that would fit the mold for his expansive game, but one that could also kick the life out of a rugby ball as Naas Botha did in the past.
The 20-year-old Pollard fulfilled Meyer’s wish by putting in an extraordinary performance from a Springbok flyhalf as he only not dictated play with his willingness to set up his outside backs but even more so with his ability to take on the All Blacks defence and breach it with relative ease and score two tries.
While Pollard missed his first shot at goal with a penalty most pivots would slot over in their sleep, for the rest he was pretty much flawless.
Those two tries were magical and almost something out of the “How to be the perfect flyhalf” manual with Pollard carving through the organised and often resolute All Blacks defence with relative ease.
The first was a clever snipe between prop Joe Moody and lock Sam Whitelock and the second a similar snipe at All Blacks captain Richie McCaw with momentum getting Pollard over the line.
Meyer agreed afterwards that the exploits of Pollard and Lambie have solved his problem at flyhalf.
Lambie has made a strong claim for the jersey as well with his two performances in Cape Town against the Wallabies and on Saturday with that match-winning 53-metre penalty at the end of the game.
Then there is also Morné Steyn to consider who had been the incumbent before Pollard stole the limelight this year.
Steyn has won the Springboks many Tests with his ability to be pin-point accurate with his kicks at goal.
“I tell you what, it gets more difficult. Handré has always been good on attack and I’ve felt that he can also be a good inside centre,” Meyer said.
“I asked Pat how far he could kick it when Handré was kicking the ball from 65 metres during the warm-ups, and he said he would tell me but he never came back to me.
“I was really worried about that last kick because it was the difference between winning and losing. All credit to Pat as well, he kicked that unbelievable kick under a huge amount of pressure.
“Both of them are very calm and you have Morné as well. I’ve always felt we need some great 10s in this country if we want to go forward and we have a guy like Johan Goosen as well. Suddenly it is going to become very tough to pick the right guy,” added Meyer.
Pollard not only plays with the confidence of the man who knows he is the right guy, he also speaks with great authority.
“We want to keep the ball and we want to play a nice brand of rugby. The days of kicking the ball are over. We want to keep the ball in hand a bit more, if it is on then we are going to take up the space out wide.
“But if they are up I’m going to kick because we still have our kicking game. I think if you can find the right blend, know when to kick and know when to run. We still have a couple of faults here and there but we are getting there,” said Pollard.
Pollard said that Saturday’s Test was a dream come true and believes 2014 has been a special year for him because of the backing he has received from his coaches and teammates.
“It is absolutely a dream. Playing New Zealand in New Zealand was one of the dreams but the biggest dream always remained playing them at Ellis Park in front of 63 000 supporters. You can’t put it in words and you can’t describe it. So definitely my dreams came true,” Pollard s aid.
“I’ve been very blessed and many coaches have backed me and I’ve had good teammates around me. Starting with the SA Under-20 group we had a great side and did well and from then on it has been an amazing ride.” - Cape Times