Blue Bulls and South Africa fly-half Handre Pollard will miss the Vodacom Super Rugby season after rupturing cruciate ligaments in training.
Pollard featured greatly for the Springboks in the 2015 World Cup, playing at 10 whilst South Africa finished in third place. And despite being just 21-years-old, the extremely accurate goal-kicker is highly regarded as a huge talent in the rugby world.
However, after things were going pretty well for the 20-capped Springbok, Pollard will now face his first major setback of his career after a demoralising long-term injury.
Bulls head coach Nollis Marais said of the injury:
Handre was easing back into training, his first phase of final rehab before being cleared to play and was busy with a passing drill when he injured himself.
This is pretty devastating for all of us, as Handre was a key player for us.
The Bulls will now try to soldier on for the 2016 Super Rugby campaign without one of their most promising assets in the back-line.
Jurgen Visser is the man likely to occupy the Bulls’ number 10 shirt for now, which is not such a devastation as they have the quality in their squad to improve on last season’s second-place finish, with the likes of Pierre Spies, Francois Hougaard and Arno Botha also in their squad.
