Springbok Director of Rugby confirmed that flyhalf Handre Pollard will feature for South Africa in their final World Cup Pool B match against Tonga at Stade de Marseille next Sunday at 21:00.
Erasmus, speaking on Sunday cautioned not to expect too much from the Pollard, who has only played 30 minutes for Leicester Tigers in a Premiership Cup since his return from a calf muscle injury suffered in May.
"You have to see things in perspective. Handre Pollard is not Superman. Four weeks ago he was totally not ready to play rugby. He hasn’t even run full pace four or five weeks ago. He has only played 40 minutes of rugby."
"He can’t just come on the field and do goal-kicking; he must tackle, pass, do kick-offs, sidestep, do hand-offs, clean out at the rucks. People think we didn’t pick Handre Pollard because we didn’t want to. That’s not the case. Handre was injured. He has only had 40 minutes of rugby and a week of training with us last week."
"This week will now be full-on contact where he doesn’t sit out a session. That’s why I said he wasn’t up for selection last week. But we were always going to rotate the squad for the Tonga match so he’s definitely up for selection for this match."
"Manie is obviously in a bit of a dip with his goal-kicking. He knows it, we know it, the world knows it, everybody keeps on talking about it. When Faf took one kick from 55 metres, he hit the upright and we almost scored from it. Faf is a really good goal-kicker but he is not always going to be on the field."
"Handre is playing this weekend, but let’s see first of all how Handre does the other stuff in the game. Does he get through it on the contact side of things? I am sure he’ll also take some time to find his rhythm with his kicking under pressure."
"Tonga will be a great test for Pollard as a yardstick to see where he is before we go, if we go, into those quarter-finals, and who will be on the field. Manie is certainly playing brilliant fly-half rugby at the moment, obviously, his goal-kicking is not matching that at this stage.”