How Handre Pollard went from committed young hopeful to South Africa's rugby messiah By the age of 12, he had been fast-tracked into the Western Province youth set-up and had been accepted on a scholarship at the prestigious Paarl Gimnasium. Within a couple of years, he was on the radar of Meyer, then director of rugby at the Blue Bulls. Pollard had grown up as a Western Province supporter, but dropped a bombshell by announcing at 18 that he was moving to Pretoria to link-up with Meyer. That decision still rankles in the Cape to this day. To understand his reasoning it is instructive to look at the example of Francois Steyn, his predecessor as the Springboks" golden boy who had won a World Cup at 20. Now 27 when he should be at the peak of his powers, he is playing in Japan and is exiled from the national team. In a rare moment of self-reflection, Steyn said that he wished he had a mentor to guide him through those early heady years, which is exactly what Meyer offered to Pollard as well as a clearly defined career path. Certainly it would have been easy for success to have gone to Pollard's head. While still a schoolboy, he guided the Under-20s, the Baby Boks, to the Junior World Championship title in 2012 and was this year voted IRB Junior Player of the Year for captaining the side to the final where they lost to England. It was in the changing room while digesting that defeat that SARU president Oregan Hoskins told Pollard that he would be making his senior debut against Scotland eight days later. That promotion was partly the result of an injury crisis at fly-half but Meyer welcomed the opportunity to use Pollard as a bridge to a more expansive, multi-faceted game. In any such evolution, there will be setbacks, which South Africa's 29-15 defeat to Ireland on Saturday undoubtedly was. Jonathan Sexton played Pollard off the park and it may be that Pat Lambie starts against England on Saturday with Meyer promising all his fly-halves game time on their tour. It was a rude introduction into playing northern-hemisphere conditions, but speaking before the match Meyer made it clear his selection was made with the World Cup in mind. "Handré is a special, special attacking player who can attack the advantage line, that is what we have been trying to do," Meyer said. He still needs a lot of work on his tactical game and his kicking game and that is why we put him in these conditions.