Ken Borland

Handre Pollard was confirmed as the hottest young thing in South African rugby on Sunday night, but the winner of both the Young Player and U20 Player of the Year awards is not yet a definite starter in the number 10 jersey for the Springboks at the World Cup later this year.

Pollard himself accepts this and the most famous of all Springbok flyhalves, Naas Botha, believes the tactical demands of each individual match will decide whether the Bulls star or Pat Lambie start in the pivot position during the World Cup.

“Both Handre and Pat are absolutely fantastic flyhalves but I think it depends on what the Springboks want to achieve tactically when it comes to choosing between them,” Botha told The Citizen.

“Handre is different to most flyhalves because he’s more of a strike runner, when he’s under pressure he backs his physicality. I just think he’s a different attacker than your normal, smaller number 10s, he’s a lot more direct with ball in hand.

“Pat has quicker hands than Handre and can make something out of nothing outside him. Sometimes Handre will just decide to run into the defence, whereas Pat can create space out wide in those situations.

“But they’re both exceptional kickers and fantastic defenders, so I think it depends on where the Springboks want to attack the opposition: more directly or out wide,” Botha explained.

The 20-year-old Pollard says the most important thing for him in the forthcoming SuperRugby season is to develop the consistency that marks out first-choice Springboks.

“It’s a World Cup year so it’s massive for me and the team as well, but my first focus is on SuperRugby, because nobody has been selected for the World Cup yet. It’s a big year especially for the Bulls because we really need to step up this year.

“SuperRugby is going to be the biggest challenge yet for me and what I’ll be focusing on is consistency. Players like Victor Matfield and Jean de Villiers play well week in and week out,” Pollard said.

The suggestion that Lambie (1.78m, 87kg) and Pollard (1.88m, 97kg) could play alongside each other in the Springbok team, especially with inside centre De Villiers’ participation in doubt due to a serious knee injury, does not seem likely to happen given that the World Rugby Junior Player of the Year said that the Bulls will only use him in the number 12 jersey “if push comes to shove”.

*Naas Botha has criticised World Cup organisers for putting the Springboks and defending champion All Blacks in the same side of the draw for the knockout stages of the World Cup.

South Africa are in Pool B and New Zealand in Pool C and, if they both win their pools and their probable quarterfinals against England/Australia and France/Ireland respectively, then they will meet in the semi-finals, despite currently being the two best sides in the world.

“I don’t understand how New Zealand, who are ranked first, and us, who are second, can meet in the semi-finals. It is absolutely wrong. One versus two, if both teams do their job, should be the final.

“We know why it’s happening, but is it right? Nobody wants to see the two best teams playing each other in the semi-final!” Botha said.

The draw for the pools was done a year after the previous World Cup, but the All Blacks and Springboks were also the top two teams in the world at the end of 2012.

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Hashim Amla confirmed he was surprised by how quickly the West Indies folded and Dale Steyn described his bowling as “nothing special”, but there was no way South Africa were merely given a free pass on their way to their crushing innings and 220-run victory at SuperSport Park in Centurion on Saturday.

It took fast bowling of the highest quality from Steyn, the sort of intense, destructive spell that he and so few other fast bowlers are capable of at Test level.

Steyn’s quick mopping up of the West Indies second innings has ensured some extra, much-needed rest for a South African side that was beleaguered by injury during their first Test in four months.

“We’re glad to have an extra one-and-a-half days rest because this felt like a long Test, being the first one we have played in a long time. I was surprised by how quickly the match finished, I didn’t expect to get seven wickets in the session, but the pitch was getting quite difficult to bat on and it was exceptional bowling from Dale. Any team in the world would have found him very difficult to handle today,” Amla said after winning his first Test at home as captain in the most convincing fashion.

“We were standing behind the stumps, AB de Villiers and I, and we could feel that things were going to happen after he hit the left-hander [Leon Johnson] early on. The pitch had quickened up and when Dale gets a sniff he runs through teams, we’ve seen it many, many times before. We’re just glad he’s on our side … “ Amla added.

Steyn had gone wicket-less in the first innings and, although he denied he was particularly striving to make up for it, there seemed a determination and an extra intensity about his performance on Saturday morning.

“I’m never upset as long as we bowl the opposition out and then I’m happy. I thought Vernon [Philander] and Morne [Morkel] bowled beautifully yesterday and even Dean Elgar got a wicket, which made me a bit bummed!

“There was nothing special about today, maybe I was a bit more consistent with my line and length and I got rewarded. Some days you find the edge, other days you go past it, that’s cricket. I deserved it today, but yesterday I didn’t.

“The ball came out nicely and today I got the first edge and then you tend to make the batsman play more and get on a roll,” Steyn said.

The world’s number one fast bowler also gave credit to the fantastic catching behind the wicket, with Alviro Petersen a stand-out at second slip.

For their part, West Indies captain Denesh Ramdin said his team are going to have to show more application if they are going to keep the series alive in Port Elizabeth from Boxing Day.

“We need more application, it was disappointing the way the batsmen got out once they had got starts. It’s very important for us to bat longer sessions, we have to be smart, leave the ball alone, sway away, myself included. We’re up against a very good bowling attack, number one in the world, and they hit very good areas. They don’t give many opportunities and it’s very difficult to get starts on these pitches,” Ramdin said.

In terms of application and skill, the West Indies can do no better than to try and emulate Amla (208) and De Villiers (152), whose record partnership set up South Africa’s impressive victory.

Almost half of the field for the Nedbank Golf Challenge at Sun City has been confirmed, with Korean-born American Kevin Na, the world number 26, the latest player to confirm his participation in the event from December 4-7.

The 14 confirmed players includes half of the triumphant European Ryder Cup team, with Thomas Bjorn, the defending champion, Martin Kaymer, Lee Westwood, Victor Dubuisson, Jamie Donaldson and Stephen Gallacher all having qualified for the second edition of the new-look Nedbank Golf Challenge with a 30-man field.

The Race to Dubai, the European Tour’s order of merit, ends this weekend in Dubai with the World Tour Championship, and the majority of the Sun City field will then be confirmed. The only remaining places will depend on who wins the Cape Town Open on November 30 and who the top five South Africans in the world rankings are.

Tournament director Alastair Roper said the likes of Marcel Siem, Jonas Blixt, Louis Oosthuizen, Joost Luiten, Alexander Levy, Mikko Ilonen, Shane Lowry and Tommy Fleetwood were all likely to qualify and had entered, while he would be targeting Ian Poulter, Danny Willett, Sergio Garcia, Adam Scott, Brooks Koepke, the winner of the lucrative Turkish Open at the weekend, and Ernie Els in the coming days to secure their participation.

Top European stars such as Rory McIlroy, Henrik Stenson and Justin Rose will be heading to the United States that week to play in the Hero Honda World Challenge, Tiger Woods’s tournament that has moved from California to Orlando, Florida.

“I’m not holding my breath for Adam Scott, and Poulter, Willett and Garcia have yet to express an interest. Koepke is now sixth on the Race to Dubai and has not yet entered, but I’m going to try and get him to do that soon.

“Ernie is the fourth-highest South African in the rankings so he should qualify, but he has an injury niggle and I think he’s leaving it as late as possible to enter just to see how his fitness is. Dawie van der Walt is in as the winner of the Sunshine Tour order of merit and Charl Schwartzel and Louis Oosthuizen are the next two South Africans on the rankings.

“Then there’s Ernie and Tim Clark. George Coetzee was in the reckoning on the Race to Dubai but has now slipped out, but if he has a good week now then he could edge out Tim Clark. But a lot of the South Africans – like George, Tim, Branden Grace, Richard Sterne and maybe Retief Goosen will hopefully be playing in the Cape Town Open to try and win that and qualify for Sun City,” Roper said yesterday.

If some of those golfers are culled from the list then the likes of Pablo Larrazabal and Romain Wattel will come into the picture, while South African Danie van Tonder has finned his way into contention through his performances this season. If Englishman Ross Fisher maintains his 18^th position in the Race to Dubai then he will qualify through that; otherwise he’s in as the leader of the Sunshine Tour order of merit. If Fisher qualifies through his European Tour ranking, then Van Tonder, second on the local money-list, will be making his Nedbank Golf Challenge debut.

The presence of at least three golfers of Asian heritage – Na, Thongchai Jaidee and Kiradech Aphibarnrat – will also enable Sun International to go on a valuable marketing exercise of their resort to countries like South Korea and Thailand.

Roper was also delighted to report steady rain in the Pilanesberg over the last couple of weeks, which apart from maybe encouraging the moles to burrow just underneath the fairways, should guarantee consistent rough and encourage the golfers to stay on the short grass.

Confirmed players: Thomas Bjørn (Denmark), Martin Kaymer (Germany), Lee Westwood (England), Charl Schwartzel (South Africa), Victor Dubuisson (France), Jamie Donaldson (Wales), Stephen Gallacher (Scotland), Dawie van der Walt (South Africa), Kiradech Aphibarnrat (Thailand), Luke Donald (England), Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spain), Thongchai Jaidee (Thailand), Ross Fisher (England), Kevin Na (United States).