The Untold Handré Pollard Story

Handré Pollard was built for World Cups. By the time he was 21, he’d already starred in
3 Junior World Cups for the Baby Boks. 5 years later, he scored 22 points in the World Cup final, as the Springboks romped to a third World Cup victory. 

4 years after that, he wasn’t in the original squad to defend South Africa’s title in France due to calf injury, but joined the team at later in the tournament in dramatic circumstances. 

Pollard’s kicking in the final was nothing short of a masterclass, as the Springboks won the World Cup yet again. From ordinary beginnings in small town South Africa, to the biggest stage in rugby, this is the untold story of the best kicker in the world.

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Transcript

Our story this week begins in Upington, in the Northern Cape. Upington, for the uninitiated, is a remote, dusty town, most famous for being a remote dusty town when it isn’t producing fruit and vegetables of astounding quality in fields watered by the nearby Orange River.

In June 2010, when much of South Africa were themselves being watered daily by the four-yearly football extravaganza called the World Cup, Upington was playing host to the under-16 Grant Khomo Week, a week for the best under-16 rugby players in the country.

As luck would have it, that year’s final in Upington was played between Western Province and the Bulls. Going into the final the Baby Bulls were pretty bullish, not only in the sense of expecting to win against Western Province but, well, their pack of forwards were pretty bull-like too. 

They were captained at loose-head prop by Pierre Schoeman, later to find the tartan within and qualify for Scotland, and, according to those who were there, sported the biggest pack of young forwards in the competition.

As any smart rugby brain will tell you, having a pack of little Bulls representing your province is only half the battle. Standing opposite the Bulls that day was a young fly-half, from Paarl Gimnasium, 700 hundred kilometres to the south. His name was Handré Pollard, and he was playing for Western Province. He was slap-bang in the middle of his five years at high school that saw him swim and play cricket and get into occasional trouble as a young squire at boarding school.

Sitting in the stands watching it all that day was Ian Schwartz, the Bulls’ high-performance manager, and Heyneke Meyer, who was head of rugby at the union, after having just returned from a brief stint of coaching at Leicester. 

Schwartz and Meyer were hoping that the young men in the pale blue jerseys would prevail over Handré and his teammates in white and blue stripes. But they weren’t so one-eyed as not to recognise talent when they saw it. It of course came along in the form of Pollard, who produced a masterclass that afternoon in turning the Baby Bulls around so much that, when the 80 minutes were up, their heads were spinning.

“Handré was exceptional in that final,” remembers Schwartz, who is now SA Rugby’s Strategic Performance Manager. “I remember turning to Heyneke and saying that this young guy had such vision and Heyneke nodded his head and agreed. Handré didn’t put a foot wrong all afternoon and Western Province won the final 33-14 scoring four tries to two. Handré was absolutely magnificent.”     

Playing directly opposite Pollard that day for the junior Bulls in Upington was Altonio Jantjies, Elton’s younger brother. Better-known as “Tony”, Jantjies wasn’t too shabby of a player himself. He was so gifted in fact, that when the IRB Junior World Cup was hosted in the Western Cape two years later, Jantjies found himself in the South African under-20 team. Pollard was there, too, although he was still at school, chosen, said Schwartz, because of a couple of late withdrawals through injury.

In the Baby Boks’ first game of the competition against Ireland, Jantjies started at fly-half. Pollard was on the bench. It was a keenly-contested affair and although Jantjes kicked five out of five, it wasn’t enough to ensure a South African win. They lost by five points, a loss for which Jantjies was deemed partly responsible. 

With Jantjies shifting to the bench, this gave Handré this chance. Pollard started against Italy in the next match, with the Baby Boks winning comfortably in an eight-try romp. The Baby Boks’ last group game was a tricky match against England, made trickier still by the fact that England had by that stage beaten Ireland, to whom South Africa had lost in their opening game.

A win – are any similarities to the 2019 or even the 2023 World Cup beginning to emerge? – was a necessity. Again, Pollard started. South Africa scored four tries to nil in a comprehensive 28-15 victory. Pollard succeeded with all four conversions. He, and not Jantjies, who had started against Ireland, was now an established member of the side.

Colleagues of Pollard’s in the Baby Bok squad in 2012 you may have heard of were Steven Kitshoff, Pieter-Steph du Toit, and Jan Serfontein. Paul Willemse, the gigantic lock later to become a naturalised Frenchman, was also in the side. 

South Africa swatted off Argentina in the semi-final at Newlands. At Newlands they remained for the final, where they played against the old enemy, the junior All Blacks.

New Zealand had lost by the odd penalty to Wales in their round-robin game but made up for it in the semi-final, where they walloped Wales 30-6, four tries to nil, to march into the final as the defending champions. True to expectations, as knock-out games so often are, the final was nip and tuck. 

New Zealand led by a point at half-time, with South Africa leading by a point 15 minutes later. With 20 minutes to go and Willemse just having been sent off, Pollard potted a gigantic drop-kick from about five or six metres from inside the New Zealand half to make it 17-13 to South Africa. 

Moments later, Serfontein, who later became a Springbok in his own right, and one of the players of the tournament, scored a try in the right-hand corner. Although New Zealand grabbed a late penalty, Pollard had shown his big-match temperament in front of 33 000 spectators as South Africa held on to win 22-16. At this point, Pollard had yet to finish school. I also suspect he had that he probably had never left the country, although he would see a fair bit of it in the years to come.

Watch the video of the match highlights on YouTube and you can begin to detect the development of a Pollard kicking style. Everyone has their approach, their ritual, their sideways squint – a la Owen Farrell – at the uprights. In Jonny Wilkinson’s case, it was a gathering of hands in the distinctive Wilkinson cradle. 

Ah, do I know you? Well, um, I’m Jonny’s left hand, pleased to meet you. Pleased to meet you mate, I’m Jonny’s right. Should we shake on it and have a moment?

Some fly-halves are infamous for taking what seems like multiple eternities to finally kick the ball.

Pollard had his kinks too. In his first kick of the final in 2012, for example, he stuttered. I’m not even sure it’s fair to call what he did a stutter – that might be too comprehensive a description because what Pollard did was admittedly subtle. 

It might simply have been a stop, except it was more a stop-start, a stop to get him started, rather than a stop to bring him to a grinding halt. 

He set off with the right foot as he approached the ball, and then sort of trailed his left leg along behind him in slow motion as if it was getting a little heavy for him. This had the effect of slowing him down, of breaking his rhythm, but it also somehow composed him and – even – made him more upright. It’s quite strange to watch but it’s unmistakably there, as unique as a fingerprint or a signature. 

Whatever little kinks in the Pollard groove you see today the technique worked terrifically when he was a younger player. His first kick in the 2012 final, which was flush against the touchline with the posts off to his right as he looked at them, went straight through the middle of the uprights. 

Not only did it garner three points but it was the kind of kick that signalled intent: it said, not in a bragging way, either, “Well, here we are. And we’re not going home empty-handed.”

Playing for the Baby Boks while still at school brings with it certain pressures. Girls begin to look at you in the street and giggle when you pass. You, and not your parents, begin to get invited to braais. The media begin to circle. It becomes understandably difficult to focus on trigonometry, or Second World War history, or the reproductive cycle of the caterpillar. 

In Pollard’s case there was a rumour doing the rounds that he wouldn’t be chosen for the Western Province Craven Week team because he had already signed for the Blue Bulls. It all began to get rather silly. Sooner or later, school sport becomes rather silly. 

The rumour that Pollard signed anything before his 18th birthday is nonsense, says Schwartz. Having seen Pollard in Upington, Schwartz bided his time, watching carefully to see how Pollard was progressing in the various weeks and festivals around the country. 

Schwartz hoped that the Pollard family’s original commitment to Handré signing for the Bulls in 2013 would be honoured. It was. Directly after leaving school – from under Western Province’s rather sniffy and complacent noses – Pollard, the boy from Paarl, the most Cape town of all Cape towns, became a Bull.

With Pollard’s arrival at the union, so “Tony” Jantjies’ star began to fade. Handré started to outclass his schoolboy rival. After Pollard took his place at the Junior World Championships after the Ireland opener the previous year, Jantjies’ role in the tournament was downgraded to late substitutions and after-thoughts. 

When asked, Schwartz says that Jantjies was provided with opportunities but never quite banged the door down. Reading between the lines, the intimation is clear: Pollard was rather good at doing just that, reserving a special knock for the biggest matches of all. 

In his calm, undemonstrative way, Pollard set about impressing Frans Ludeke, who was then the Bulls senior coach, and Meyer, later to take over from Ludeke and later to become the Springbok coach. 

Once at Tukkies, Pollard won the ‘Varsity Cup with Tukkies in his first year out of school in 2013. By June of the following year he had made his debut for the Springboks, playing against Scotland in what was then Port Elizabeth. He was yet to turn 21. 

“Remember,” says Schwartz, “he was often playing at inside centre during this period and I’ve always thought that held him in good stead. Some guys at fly-half aren’t always the greatest defensively, but Handré can defend that channel – he’s had the experience at centre.”  

All of this might suspiciously look like the establishment of a legend. It’s as though a kind of hagiography of St. Handré is being written. But it’s good to remember there have been the inevitable periods of stasis, growth spurts and downs in a career that we incorrectly think of as kissing the sky from a heady young age. 

Take his Grade 10 years at Paarl Gimnasium, when he was in the under-16A team. His coach that year was a technical drawing and engineering teacher called Nico Momsen, who had coached the school first XV for a combined 12 years in two separate periods before that. 

Momsen and Pollard had a long-standing and extremely civilised tussle throughout 2010 about the merits (or otherwise) of the long pass. The long pass was Pollard’s first love, a darling to which he wasn’t ready to say goodbye. 

Momsen thought otherwise. He argued the long pass was vulnerable to the intercept. And added that it’s easy to drift-defend. Whenever Pollard flung out a long one, his heart stopped. Momsen doesn’t say who won the debate but I sense that it might have been Pollard.

Or take the following year, 2011, Pollard’s first year of first XV rugby at Paarl Gimnasium, for instance. In point of fact, the 2011 season was something of a disaster at the school, so much so that it still inspires tut-tutting in the corridors, hostels and common-rooms.

That year they lost to Bishops, Paul Roos, Rondebosch, Outeniqua, Affies and Grey College, but the Paarl derby gave them an opportunity to put a different gloss on things. In the interests of narrative symmetry I’d love to be able to tell you that Pollard, then in Grade 11, rescued matters with a 78-minute penalty as he was to do in the World Cup semi-final against England 12 years later, but the river of history meandered off elsewhere. 

In actual fact, the winning points for Pollard’s team back in 2011 were scored by Johannes Human, the full-back. At 19-all he goaled a long-range drop-kick and Paarl Gimnasium almost rescued the season with a 22-19 victory.

There have been other set-backs and frustrations. Having been in the Upington stands that hot June day in 2010 with Schwartz, Meyer was in a good position to judge Pollard’s credentials once he became Springbok coach. 

Meyer picked him for the 2015 Rugby World Cup in England and Wales as understudy to Pat Lambie, who started in the Springboks’ opening match against Japan in Brighton. South Africa lost the match 34-32 to an exceptionally late Japan try, and, in a sense, it was a loss for which Meyer was never forgiven. 

Afterwards Meyer apologised to the nation, admitting the loss was “unacceptable”, which was well-meaning but misguided. In apologising for the Japan loss, Meyer was drawing attention to the very thing he might have been better advised to deal with but not magnify. It’s a fine line. Sometimes judicious pretence has its advantages. Beyond a certain point, you need to ignore things and get on with it, as the 2019 ‘Boks did after losing their opening World Cup match to the All Blacks. 

Pollard dodged the bullet – sort of – only playing 22 minutes in the second-half against Japan. He replaced Lambie for the next match in the pool stage, the 46-6 victory over Samoa, where he partnered Fourie du Preez at half-back. Lambie was thrown a consolation eight minutes, and didn’t in fact come on for Pollard, who played in the entire game. 

Instead Lambie replaced Jean de Villiers for the Samoa game but by then Meyer had made up his mind. Pollard was now the incumbent, the stellar Du Preez his partner. 

The two paired up against Scotland and did so again against Wales in the quarter-final, where Pollard scored 18 points and Du Preez scored the only Springbok try in a narrow 23-19 win.

The Springboks made a fist of it in the semi-final, only losing to the All Blacks by two points, although they were out-scored by two tries to nil. They duly won the third-placed playoff against Argentina but the Japan loss, master-minded by the astute Eddie Jones, cast an increasingly ominous shadow. 

By the end of the year Meyer had fallen on his sword. Statistics tell us that his win-ratio was better than you might think but against the old enemy, New Zealand, it was disappointing. Under his tenure the Boks only beat the Blackness once in eight attempts. 

This might say more about the riches at New Zealand’s disposal in the period than it does about comparative ‘Bok poverty. Still, this is the air fryer in which any Springbok coach sits. And Meyer was duly roasted.

So began the wasted days under Meyer’s successor, Allister Coetzee, who lost more games than he won in his 25-game tenure. Having been seen as a schoolboy in the under-16 Grant Khomo Week in Upington counted for nothing now, as Coetzee picked Lambie to start at fly-half in his first Test in charge against Ireland. 

Morné Steyn also found himself in the pecking order, as did Tony Jantjies’ elder brother, Elton. Johan Goosen, playing at fullback, often did the Bok kicking duties and for perhaps the first time in his international career, Pollard appeared to fall back in the eyes of those who might have picked him.

Coetzee’s reign was never a happy one. There was a whispering campaign against him and his employers, SA Rugby, managed the incredible trick of both employing him while simultaneously giving the impression that he never had their full backing. 

Coetzee started off his second full season in 2017 well enough, with a home series victory against France, but come September in Albany, New Zealand, the Boks suffered one of the heaviest defeats in their history. With Jantjies (E) and Francois Hougaard the half-backs and, strange as it sounds in this age of Siya-mania, Eben Etzebeth the captain, the Springboks leaked eight All Black tries to lose 57-0. It was a Test that had more than a shade of the 53-3 Twickenham debacle against England under Corné Krige in 2002 about it. 

Coetzee gave Pollard 20 minutes along with his half-back partner, Rudy Paige, and that remained his run-on role in that season’s Rugby Championship. Jantjies (E) was ahead of Pollard on the starting grid, with Hougaard and Ross Cronje ahead of Paige.  

There was an upside to all of this. When Coetzee walked the plank in 2018, Pollard was never tarred by association. New coach, Rassie Erasmus, liked Pollard’s pedigree, as planning for the 2019 World Cup began in earnest. Happily for Pollard, the Coetzee experiment also happened between World Cups, so Pollard was, in a sense free to act on the biggest stage untarnished.

World Cups are an abiding theme for Pollard. The Grant Khomo Week in Upington, remember, had taken place against the backdrop of the 2010 World Cup. Pollard played in three Junior World Cups – 2012, 2013 and 2014 – before he was 21. 

There is a sense, given his steel, sense of occasion and nerve, that Pollard was made for World Cups. Perhaps though – and here’s a cheeky thought – the converse is true? Perhaps World Cups and World Cup finals are made for Pollard?  

John McGrath, the Irish fitness and strength coach and occasional vaudeville strongman, spent time with the Paarl Gimnasium first XV in Pollard’s two years in the side. He was impressed by Pollard’s ability to deadlift 200 kilograms off the floor as a 17 year-old schoolboy, but that wasn’t all. What impressed him most about Pollard was his sense of occasion. 

“The great players have it,” says McGrath. “For want of a better phrase we can call it big-match temperament – and Handré always had it. Come the big day and you can be absolutely sure that he’d rock up.”

That sense of occasion partly rested on Pollard’s ability as a place-kicker. As a junior there was something staccato, something slightly stop-start to the Pollard approach to the kicking tee. Come the 2019 final in Yokohama against England the pause was still there but it was far less distinct than it had been in his kicking as a junior in the 2012 Junior World Championships. 

In Yokohama he led with his right leg and then, just momentarily, mind you, the motion slowed before gaining pace. His kicking against England in the final four years ago, lest we forget, was immaculate, keeping the Springboks just in front until their late burst of tries.

All those years ago, when Schwartz sat in the stands that winter’s day in Upington, he was searching for a comparison as he turned to Meyer to explain who a young Pollard reminded him of. At first the comparison wouldn’t come. He waited a minute or two. 

“Do you know who this kid really reminds me of, Heyneke,” he asked after a while. Meyer turned to him with an enquiring look in his eyes. “It’s Naas Botha.” Heyneke simply nodded and smiled. Schwartz had nailed it – just like Handré does time and time again.