Handre Pollard called up to South Africa World Cup squad

South Africa’s 2019 World Cup winning fly-half Handre Pollard has been called up to Jacques Nienaber’s current squad as a replacement for the injured Malcolm Marx.

Pollard was one of the surprising omissions from the initial squad, but he has been hampered by a calf injury in recent months. But after hooker Marx suffered a World Cup ending knee injury last week, the discussion arose as to who should be called up as his replacement.

Nienaber has opted for Pollard, which leaves the Springboks with only one specialist hooker in the squad, Bongi Nbonambi. He started in the Springboks’ handsome 76-0 win over Romania, while flanker/ hooker Deon Fourie deputised on the bench. That looks as though it will be the format for the rest of the World Cup for the reigning champions.

After running out for Leicester Tigers on Friday, Pollard will team up with his national teammates on Monday in Paris ahead of their titanic clash against Ireland at the Stade de France at the weekend.

Nienaber said: “We are confident with the cover we have at hooker with Bongi Mbonambi and Deon Fourie, and Marco van Staden has been slotting in the position since our alignment camps in February, so we opted to call up Handre, who has been in our system for years and who was a member of our team in 2019 when we won the World Cup.

“He’s been working hard to return to full fitness, and we are pleased that he now has some game time under his belt for his club, and this will allow him to slot back into the team.

“We’ll work closely with him in the next week to get him back up to speed and back into the full swing of things, and we have no doubt he’ll step up to the challenge. He’s been here before so he knows the physical and mental demands of the World Cup.”