Willie le Roux has paid a glowing tribute to long-time playing pal Handre Pollard. The Springbok duo have been teammates on the international stage for more than a decade. Now they are together on the domestic front for the first time, with flyhalf Pollard having made the move from Leicester to join fullback Le Roux at the Vodacom Bulls this season.
They shared in a 19-17 comeback victory away to Edinburgh last Friday night and are now setting their sights on Saturday’s Jukskei derby with the Lions at Ellis Park.
Pollard played a significant part in the win at Hive Stadium, slotting a couple of shots at goal and helping provide the territorial foothold as the Bulls turned around a 17-5 half-time deficit.
Le Roux knows him better than most and is full of praise for the 31-year-old playmaker.
“He’s my roommate, he’s a very relaxed guy. There aren’t a lot of things that bother him,” he said.
“We have been playing together since 2014. It’s been a long time, so we understand each other.
“What a guy to have in your team, a proper trooper and a general.”
Outlining Pollard’s contribution to the win over Edinburgh, Le Roux said: “It was tough conditions to play in. You want to run the ball around a bit back home at Loftus, but coming here, you have to play a bit of a different ball game. It helped us a lot to stay in the right areas in the second half.”
Giving his own thoughts on the triumph in Scotland, Pollard said: “We weren’t great in the first half, we weren’t as accurate as we wanted to be, we were pretty static.
“We had a good chat at half-time. We said we have got some big boys, so let’s focus on the carries and get some momentum.
“We just said we were going to have a good crack at it and we did.”
The 85-Test cap Pollard spent six years with the Bulls before having three-season spells in both France and England, with Montpellier and Leicester. Now he is back in Pretoria and looking to help the team climb the Vodacom URC log.
“We had a few disruptions coaching-wise throughout the start of the season, which is always difficult to control, but we are starting to bond as a group now, and the fight shows in our game,” he said.
“There is a long way to go. We are not nearly as good as we want to be, but it’s a step in the right direction and hopefully we can build on this.”