Subsequent week, Handre Pollard is ready to face Wales for the tenth time in his stellar Check profession.
Exterior of The Rugby Championship, Wales are his most acquainted opponent and the 31-year-old has a number of recollections from these previous encounters.
The Springbok sharpshooter will always remember the 2015 World Cup quarter-final at Allianz Stadium, London, a 23-19 win for the Boks.
Such was his rising inventory, Pollard had already collected 18 caps at that stage, regardless of solely making his debut contemporary from the U20s a year-and-a-half earlier than.
Nonetheless, Pollard regarded destined to be the fall-guy at Twickenham, as kick after kick went vast of the poles. Ultimately, he discovered his radar and slotted a 62nd-minute penalty, and that proved to be sufficient to maintain Wales at bay.
“I missed three kicks within the second half, that was a good recreation, and I used to be nonetheless a younger child and I began feeling the strain rather a lot,” he admitted, when talking with Rhino, the official ball provider to the Springboks.
“However, fortunately I got here again and kicked the one in direction of the top. That additionally made me develop into a special form of individual and a kicker going ahead, as a result of in the event you be taught from these stuff you turn out to be higher.
“You’ll be able to overthink it (kicking), if it doesn’t go in accordance with plan,” he added. “However in the event you break it right down to the most straightforward stuff: your setup, ensuring your run up is nice and also you strike the ball the place you need to, then that’s it.”
Requested to call his finest second within the inexperienced and gold, the scorer of 825 Check factors, mentioned: “It’s troublesome to nail it down, I feel profitable the trophies along with your team-mates and stuff is the nicest half about it. However, individually, I’d in all probability should say the kick within the semi-final of the World Cup in 2023 was in all probability the largest momnent of my profession.”
Virtually 1 / 4 of a century has handed since Pollard was working round enjoying small-field U7s rugby in Somerset West.
And whereas rugby is now his job, and a extremely pressured one at that, Pollard says he by no means needs to neglect that feeling of choosing up a rugby ball as a teen, and the enjoyment the sport brings.
“I don’t know, it’s bizarre, however you simply can’t assist your self, you simply have gotten to choose it (a rugby ball) up, and have a crack, whether or not it’s kicking, passing, working. That’s how we grew up, and ever since then it’s been a kind of a love affair, and it has grown and grown and grown.
“Professionally, it has modified a bit, it’s not simply enjoyable. After all, there may be much more to it now. However that feeling of coming onto a coaching pitch and choosing it (the ball) up, and that first move or kick, there’s nonetheless one thing about it.
“When you lose that enjoyment I feel it is best to in all probability cease enjoying the sport as a result of that’s why I began doing it and also you need to preserve making an attempt to do it so long as I can.”
