Handré Pollard back at Twickenham and still enjoying pressure of big occasions
There will be those at a sold-out Twickenham on Saturday who will be sick of the sight of Handré Pollard.The 30-year-old fly-half returns to the stadium with Leicester six weeks after his accuracy from the tee kept the Springboks out of reach against England, his goalkicking once more a dagger to the heart of Steve Borthwick.That his opposite number will be Harlequins’ Marcus Smith only heightens the sense that England’s bete noire is back.As was the case in the 2023 World Cup semi-final, Pollard began November’s victory over England on the bench, only to come on and turn the screw from the tee.He is the elder statesman of South Africa’s pool of No 10s but is at home playing the role of safe hand on the tiller, just when Rassie Erasmus needs it.
For the Springboks it has been a year of experimentation, all the while maintaining their place at the top of the world rankings, but Pollard’s reliability, whenever Erasmus calls upon him, has been consistent.Cast your eye around the global game and there are no better candidates to shoot for goal if your life depended on it than South Africa’s double World Cup winner.“I’ve always enjoyed that part of the game,” says Pollard.“You play a lot throughout your career to get to those moments.The mindset is that some guys fear those moments, I just enjoy them.
Your team backs you 100%, if you get it it’s great.But it’s something you’ve done thousands of times before, you’re going to do it thousands of times again and you’re probably going to miss another 100 times.“They are big pressure moments but you’ve got to embrace it.It’s why we do what we do, when you’re a five-year-old kid practicing in the back yard, that’s what you were imagining.Not a kick in the first five minutes of the game.
You’ve just got to enjoy it.”Two World Cup winners’ medals no doubt help to instil such a phlegmatic approach, so too the fact that Pollard has endured some desperate lows with the Springboks to put their current highs in perspective.He immediately highlights the 57-0 loss to New Zealand in 2017 as the nadir of his international career which serves as a reminder that South Africa’s rise to world dominance began from a low footing.“Because we went through that we appreciate the good times a lot more now,” adds Pollard.“It was really bad in 2016 and 2017.
We had a lot of learning to do but that’s a reason we don’t take it for granted.”Pollard has endured his fair share of long-term injuries too so the past 12 months or so in which he has remained injury-free has enabled him to make an impact for club and country.Like Michael Cheika, it remains to be seen whether Pollard will be at Welford Road next season but his recent performance in the 56-17 win against the Sharks demonstrated that a question mark over his future is not proving a distraction.Last time out Leicester were shellshocked by free-wheeling Bristol, however, ensuring the clash with Harlequins in the London club’s annual festive fixture at Twickenham takes on greater significance.For when the Premiership was paused for the autumn internationals, Leicester were riding high in second after a Pollard-orchestrated away victory over Saracens.
Defeats by Sale and Bristol have followed in their two December Premiership fixtures but victory over Harlequins on Saturday would set the Tigers up nicely for 2025 and a tilt at returning to Twickenham in June in Cheika’s first season in charge.Pollard was absent for the start of the season due to his Rugby Championship commitments but was taken aback by how quickly Cheika had made an impact upon his return.“He completely changed the mindset of the group, which was needed,” says Pollard of his head coach, who replaced Dan McKellar in the summer after Leicester endured a trying season last term.“He gets it.He’s an experienced guy, he understands professional sport, he understands people better.
I didn’t know him personally beforehand but the way he manages the team, the way he knows how to get the best out of everyone, I’ve really appreciated that and as players you react to that.Sign up to The BreakdownThe latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week's action reviewedafter newsletter promotion“He’s just a really enjoyable guy to play for and in a long season that helps a lot.There are going to be ups and downs along the way but as long as the environment is positive and it’s a good place to be you’re probably going to be in and around the top four.It’s going back to emotionally connecting with players in a certain way, knowing how to get the best out of them in the last few minutes of the game.”The contrast in styles between Pollard and Smith makes for a fascinating contest at Twickenham.
Smith repeatedly produced moments of magic during a difficult autumn campaign for England, often sparking something from nothing, and his approach is unlikely to differ as he returns to HQ in club colours,Pollard, meanwhile, is a more structured fly-half but has honed his skills in Super Rugby, the Top 14, Japan’s Top League as well as the international stage and relishes the different challenges posed in the Premiership,“Some guys might be better suited to playing in other parts of the world but for me, I enjoy the chess game of it,” he says,“That was one of the reasons I came here,I’ve had a great experience so far and I’m just looking forward to the future.
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From Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Pope Francis: the books to look forward to in 2025
New work from Zadie Smith, memoirs from Jacinda Ardern and Bill Gates, plus the third instalment in Rebecca Yarros’s romantasy series - here’s the biggest fiction and nonfiction for the year aheadNonfictionThe Bright Side: Why Optimists Have the Power to Change the World by Sumit Paul-Choudhury (Canongate)The science journalist, who lost his wife to ovarian cancer, investigates the potent emotional forces that drive us on in the face of great hardship. Why do we have this capacity for optimism, and what distinguishes it from wishful thinking?Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Ageing as a Woman by Brooke Shields (Piatkus)The former child actor looks back at her decades-long career under a frequently harsh spotlight and reflects that, despite her industry’s obsession with youth, age brings autonomy and freedom.Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life by Agnes Callard (Allen Lane)Professor of philosophy and a public intellectual for the internet age, Callard shows how Socrates can inform the way we live our lives – from romance to politics – nearly two and a half thousand years after his death.Hope: The Autobiography by Pope Francis (Viking)Pope Francis planned to release this memoir only after his death, but apparently “the needs of our times … have moved him to make this precious legacy available now”. It will be the first ever papal autobiography
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 to The Traitors: a complete guide to the week’s entertainment in the UK
Sonic the Hedgehog 3Out now Dr Robotnik (Jim Carrey) becomes a paid-up member of the school of thought that says if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, teaming up with former adversaries Sonic, Tails and Knuckles against new kid on the block Shadow the Hedgehog, voiced by Keanu Reeves.Better ManOut now One of the buzziest and most outlandish propositions for a film this year, this is that Robbie Williams film you’ve heard about where the erstwhile Take That star is depicted by an ape, or, to be more precise, a chimpanzee. The Greatest Showman’s Michael Gracey directs.The OrderOut now Jude Law stars as Terry Husk, a real-life FBI agent who went undercover with a white-supremacist group led by the neo-Nazi Bob Mathews, in this timely drama from the talented director Justin Kurzel (Snowtown, Nitram).La CocinaOut now Based on the 1957 stage play The Kitchen by Arnold Wesker and written and directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios, this new version reimagines the kitchen in question as belonging to a Times Square tourist trap restaurant where white waitresses take orders for a staff of mostly undocumented migrants
Our readers on their pick of 2024’s best films, music, TV shows and podcasts
Welcome to the last Guide of 2024! I hope you all are enjoying your festive break, and have a better handle on which day it is than I do. As is tradition, after our own roundup of the year’s best culture, we are turning things over to you this week. Here are the films, TV shows, music, performances, and podcasts that wowed you in 2024.Thanks to everyone who sent in suggestions and sorry if we weren’t able to include yours. Enjoy the rest of your Christmas break, and see you on the other side of the new year, for our 2025 preview next Friday!Film“I’m not sure it will get the recognition it deserves when awards season rolls around, but Love Lies Bleeding was the best film I saw in 2024
The best songs of 2024 … that you haven’t heard
“Strumming in opposition to the towers” is how the Bhutan-born, US-based guitarist Tashi Dorji describes his abstract, improvised music. His song and album titles are equally poetic evocations of resistance and decay – his new album is called We Will Be Wherever the Fires Are Lit and contains songs such as Meet Me Under the Ruins and Flowers for the Unsung – and the brusque, clanging strums of his acoustic guitar resound with turmoil and determination. The album opens with Begin From Here, his strings sounding rusted, his attack frenzied. But, gradually, a bass motif emerges from the static – cool-headed and clear of purpose. Laura SnapesMichael Berdan, frontman of US post-hardcore band Uniform, wrote an essay this year on living with bulimia, in which he explained the title of their album American Standard is “the name of a ubiquitous plumbing fixture company
Camila Batmanghelidjh remembered by Lemn Sissay
1 January 1963 – 1 January 2024 The poet tells of his relationship with the founder of Kids Company, who was the ‘embodiment of integrity’ in her work for children in needI first became aware of Camila Batmanghelidjh through the disrupting influence of Kids Company. It was on the frontline of childcare in London, and everybody will remember the strong, vivacious, articulate woman at its head. There was something about her – how she dressed and the words she spoke – that showed me she wasn’t your average founder of a children’s charity. And then there were the stories that radiated out from her. She had a meeting with the queen, and during that meeting she got a call from a child in a panic, and she took the call, left the meeting and went to that child
Katt Williams, crypto and cat ladies: 2024 was the year of unexpected second chances
From comedy to courtroom drama, if you thought you’d seen it all before, that’s because this year … you hadIf 2024 was defined by anything, it was a distinct feeling of deja vu. Donald Trump ran and won, Death Cab and Janet Jackson headlined music festivals, and aesthetes on social media lusted after Windows Vista design language circa 2007. Same old, same old – almost. Because 2024 was also the year of unexpected second chances: in some very special cases, those who suffered a fall from grace or otherwise unfortunate first run in the spotlight got another shot at glory. Call it a comeback, a redemption, or deja vu all over again … for better or worse, it was their year once more
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