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Bulls confirm Pollard departure and announce surprise replacement
By Alex Shaw
A Rugby World Cup year is always a daunting one for South African Super Rugby sides, with the player exodus that usually follows the global tournament a tough one to deal with.
Plenty of players have already announced their departures for Europe or Japan, with the Sharks trio of Coenie Oosthuizen, Akker van der Merwe and Robert du Preez all taking up permanent deals with Sale Sharks in the Gallagher Premiership, whilst Eben Etzebeth and Stephan Lewies are among the others departing South Africa.
Bulls second row Lood de Jager will be joining the Sharks trio in the north-west of England at Sale and he is not the only star getting set to leave the Loftus Versfeld stadium and Pretoria, either.
Bulls CEO Alfons Meyer confirmed on Tuesday that Springbok fly-half Handre Pollard would also be calling time on his current stint with the Bulls.
"It’s one of those things. We tried everything to keep Handre here," he told Netwerk24. "But we simply can’t compete with this exchange rate."
Pollard has been linked heavily with a move to French side Montpellier, whose owner Mohed Altrad stated on Monday that a deal had been agreed in principle to sign the 25-year-old, but that the contract had not yet been signed.
Meyer did offer some positive news for Bulls fans, however, with a replacement for Pollard already lined up in the form of veteran Morne Steyn. "Morne is hugely experienced and could be an excellent mentor for Manie [Libbok]. Rassie Erasmus has given us his blessing. He also believes that Morne will be a good buy."
Libbok, 21, is a former South African under-20 stand-out who has been beginning to break his way in the Bulls senior squad over the last year and is capable of performing at both fly-half and full-back.
The return of the 34-year-old Steyn, who accrued over 120 appearances for the Bulls before departing for France in 2013, will give head coach Pote Human better depth at the position, as well as not requiring him to rush through Libbok before the youngster is ready.
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Finau is definitely operating on razor thin margins. He hasn’t done anything wrong… yet. But a player going into contact 6 inches lower than he is expecting, without him even knowing, will end in disaster. You can imagine a situation where the pass dies on Edmed and he has to bend down a little lower to catch it at the last second. Finau’s hit would have been catastrophic. The margins are just too fine. He needs to study how PSDT, at 6’7”, manages to drop his tackle height and exert just as much force with close zero danger of taking someone’s head off. Given how poorly NZ has adapted to lower their tackle height, and that this issue which has plagued the ABs for years and played a big part in them not winning the World Cup, I thought NZR and all SR coaches would be prioritising sorting this issue out. If I was Razor I would be on the phone to Clayton MacMillan and Samipeni Finau saying exactly that. Finau is a monster and shaping up to be the closest thing to Kaino since Kaino, but I wouldn’t risk selecting him for the ABs at the moment.
Go to commentsThe surprising stat I saw in the Blues game when showing Sotutu equaling the Blues forwards record was that Akira has not scored a try since 2019. Now my memory is pretty bad when it comes to those sorts of the things, I can remember his AB try though, but anyway I can’t see I can remember his last blues touchdown or any in recent years. Surely that still has to be a bogus stat. Maybe excludes SRA games?
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