A mix-up led to the fly-half wearing a different shirt against Japan
Compare: Handré Pollard in a different shirt from Vincent Koch (Getty Images)
Handré Pollard wore the wrong jersey in Rugby World Cup quarter-final
Some eagle-eyed Springboks fans noticed that fly-half Handré Pollard was wearing a slightly different shirt to his team-mates, as they lined up to face Japan in their Rugby World Cup quarter-final.
As you can see from the image above, with Pollard kicking while replacement prop Vincent Koch looks on, the shirts are slightly different. While Koch’s is the official World Cup shirt, with the competition logo on the right side of his chest, Pollard’s features the Springbok emblem.
On Monday a representative from the Boks stated: “A mix-up in supply led to the delivery of a small number of incorrectly branded jerseys by which point it was too late to source replacements.”
The @Springboks have moved to clarify why Handre Pollard was not wearing a #RWC2019 jersey against Japan.
“A mix-up in supply led to the delivery of a small number of incorrectly branded jerseys by which point it was too late to source replacements.”
Handre Pollard wore a different jersey to the rest of the Boks today, right from the national anthem. No WR logo on the chest, had the Bok instead pic.twitter.com/4R4Aj7zfzY
Second-row Lood de Jager was also in the wrong shirt during the match, one without the official World Cup logo or the graphic of the Webb Ellis trophy on the right sleeve. However, more people pointed out Pollard’s shirt switch.
Not that it made any major difference in the game, with a calm and brutal South Africa side doing the business against the competition hosts in Tokyo. The fly-half kicked 11 points in a measured performance based on forwards’ dominance.
In fact, Pollard is now on 126 World Cup points in his career, taking him into the all-time top ten in the competition. He was already South Africa’s all-time leading points scorer in the competition, with four more points than Percy Montgomery before this on kicked off.
South Africa play Wales in the World Cup semi-final in Yokohama on Sunday (6pm JST/9am BST).
Keep track of events in Japan via our Rugby World Cup homepage.
Follow Rugby World magazine on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.