A mix-up led to the fly-half wearing a different shirt against Japan
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.”
— Brenden Nel (@BrendenNel) October 21, 2019
There were plenty of people who clocked the difference throughout the 80 minutes of rugby…
Pollard wearing a different jersey?? #bokonchest pic.twitter.com/ALqelNgcAy
— Dane Galley (@DaneGalley) October 20, 2019
On to another topic of interest…
Who noticed Handre Pollard's Bok jersey today?
Anyone have a clue why he was the only one wearing this jersey @ASICSRugby @ASICS_ZA @Springboks pic.twitter.com/cgfOIvZkJq— TheYellowCap (@theyellowcap) October 20, 2019
Anyone else notice Pollard’s jersey had springbok on chest? #JPNvRSA
— Craig Ray (@craigray11) October 20, 2019
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
— BallHandling Hooker (@BHHooker) October 20, 2019
Related: Japan 3-26 South Africa
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.
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