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'To have moments like that as a fly-half is what you live for'

Handre Pollard of South Africa interacts with Manu Tuilagi of England after the Rugby World Cup France 2023 match between England and South Africa at Stade de France on October 21, 2023 in Paris, France. (Photo by Paul Harding/Getty Images)

Replacement South Africa flyhalf Handre Pollard has praised the Springboks never say die attitude as they clinched a remarkable comeback win over England to book a final berth against the All Blacks next week.

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England collapsed to an agonising 16-15 defeat against South Africa at the Stade de France as they allowed a place in Saturday’s World Cup final against New Zealand to slip from their grasp.

Steve Borthwick’s men led by nine points in the final quarter but their wet-weather masterclass began to fade as the ‘Bomb Squad’ made their presence felt for the Springboks, especially in the scrum.

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It was on the back of their set-piece ascendancy and the generalship of Pollard that the tables turned in a sodden Paris.

RG Snyman barged over for the only try of the match in the 70th minute and Pollard nailed a tricky conversion, setting up heart-stopping finish to a Test that was enthralling throughout.

The world champions were still two points behind but up stepped man-of-the-match Pollard to land the killer blow with two minutes left, nailing a penalty from just inside England’s half.

“Firstly the scrum penalty, that is what got us the opportunity,” said Pollard. “It was just a credit to them, they were unbelievable, It was a big moment but it is what you want as a player on this stage, to have moments like that as a fly-half is what you live for. It was fun.”

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Kicks

41
Total Kicks
29
1:1.9
Kick To Pass Ratio
1:2.3

“It’s unbelievable, it’s a lot of relief in this moment. Frustrated we weren’t at our best tonight, especially in that first half. We knew we had so much more to give but fair play to England, I think they put us under pressure in exactly the right areas. But jeez the fight we showed never giving up, it is what we stand for as a team and as a nation.”

“We stuck to our plan we just had to execute a bit better here and there. We took it play-by-play, minute-by-minute, you can’t look too far into the future in these kind of games. It took us a long time but we got it done.”

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Comments

16 Comments
P
Pieter 426 days ago

Must say. Manu looking good in a Bok jersey. 😉

C
CuzzyG 427 days ago

The tuff grind of 2015 RWC semi final - SAF V NZ
All Blacks defence denied SAF any tries while Handre Pollard 4 penalties kept them in the game. Dan Carter after the restart steals the ball , passes to Nonu who draws 2 defenders before putting B.Barret in for a try in the corner. Final score 20- 18 to ABs.
That’s what fly halves are meant to do, set up tries. The ABs have fly halve Richie Mounga with incredible talent and vision.

P
Poe 427 days ago

Can't beat aimlessly kicking the ball away as a 10 in a knock out game.

H
Henrik 427 days ago

Attitude wins …. “It was fun” (well, for the Bokke supporter only once the final whistle blew)

D
David 427 days ago

Justice has prevailed, as Nobody from That side of the draw deserved to be in the final.

s
strachan 427 days ago

Boks supporter but hey have to Feel for England. They deserved this one without a doubt. They are unlucky 😔
Cruel when we the best team on the day bows out. Boks stole this one. Credit England as Nd massive massive respect. Well do so one Owen F. Boks should be e proud of Ox and Pollard. Ugly win into a RWC hi gosh…will Take 1/2 a point.

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JW 6 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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