'It's weird, you just can't help yourself': Springbok rugby obsessive Handre Pollard

Next week, Handre Pollard is set to face Wales for the 10th time in his stellar Test career.

Outside of The Rugby Championship, Wales are his most familiar opponent and the 31-year-old has a host of memories from those past encounters.

The Springbok sharpshooter will never forget the 2015 World Cup quarter-final at Allianz Stadium, London, a 23-19 win for the Boks.

Such was his rising stock, Pollard had already accumulated 18 caps at that stage, despite only making his debut fresh from the U20s a year-and-a-half before.

However, Pollard looked destined to be the fall-guy at Twickenham, as kick after kick went wide of the poles. Eventually, he found his radar and slotted a 62nd-minute penalty, and that proved to be enough to keep Wales at bay.

“I missed three kicks in the second half, that was a tight game, and I was still a young kid and I started feeling the pressure quite a lot,” he admitted, when speaking with Rhino, the official ball supplier to the Springboks.

“But, luckily I came back and kicked the one towards the end. That also made me grow into a different kind of person and a kicker going forward, because if you learn from those things you become better.

“You can overthink it (kicking), if it doesn’t go according to plan,” he added. “But if you break it down to the most simple stuff: your setup, making sure your run up is good and you strike the ball where you want to, then that’s it.”

Asked to name his best moment in the green and gold, the scorer of 825 Test points, said: “It’s difficult to nail it down, I think winning the trophies with your team-mates and stuff is the nicest part about it. But, individually, I would probably have to say the kick in the semi-final of the World Cup in 2023 was probably the biggest momnent of my career.”

Almost a quarter of a century has passed since Pollard was running around playing small-field U7s rugby in Somerset West.

And while rugby is now his job, and a highly pressured one at that, Pollard says he never wants to forget that feeling of picking up a rugby ball as a youngster, and the joy the game brings.

“I don’t know, it’s weird, but you just can’t help yourself, you just have got to pick it (a rugby ball) up, and have a crack, whether it is kicking, passing, running. That’s how we grew up, and ever since then it’s been a sort of a love affair, and it has grown and grown and grown.

“Professionally, it has changed a bit, it is not just fun. Of course, there is a lot more to it now. But that feeling of coming onto a training pitch and picking it (the ball) up, and that first pass or kick, there’s still something about it.

“Once you lose that enjoyment I think you should probably stop playing the game because that’s why I started doing it and you want to keep trying to do it as long as I can.”