Former Scotland international Jim Hamilton questioned how suitable new-signing Handre Pollard is for Leicester Tigers.
Pollard’s start to life in the Premiership has gotten off to a difficult start, with the South African limping off only 27 minutes into his debut against Saracens last weekend.
The fly-half’s return to play was sooner than expected after initially being ruled out until after the November Tests with a knee injury suffered against Australia in round three of the Rugby Championship.
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Rushed return
The 28-year-old was deemed fit much earlier than forecasted by Tigers, and Hamilton questioned if the world champion was ready to make a full return to the field.
“You wonder how fit he was? Rumours and what you were hearing was he was a long way away from being fit and the next thing he is playing,” Hamilton said on the Rugby Pod.
“Well, maybe there were 750 000 reasons why he wanted to be fit. I am not being horrible but you saw the injury, he came off, I heard slightly different rumours. He knows better than anyone how far away he is or was and he clearly felt he was right to go (and play). I heard he wasn’t going to be fit until January, I heard he was going to miss the autumn Tests and stuff like that.”
Hamilton believes Pollard is unsuitable for Tigers and said the club could have looked to other options.
“I just don’t see him as a decent fit for Leicester in a like for like losing George Ford. We have always spoken highly of George Ford. The back-end of the season looked brilliant, in attack he looked brilliant.
“The way Leicester want to play you could say and argue the fact that Handre Pollard fits that but I just don’t know why they have gone out and signed a South African 10 at the back end of his career when there are other players that you could potentially look at.
“I am happy to be proven wrong and I hope he is okay and I hope he does get a bit of time in the jersey, but I just wonder whether he is the right player to take Leicester forward.”
Humble professional
Co-host on Rugby Pod, Andy Goode, disagreed with Hamilton and was impressed with Pollard’s attitude towards helping the club.
“Jim, I am just going to call you out on something there because you are trying to write a guy’s career off. He is 28,” Goode said.
“I did a bit of investigation around how he is fitting in and all this stuff and everyone you speak to at Leicester said that he is the most professional guy possible.
“He has come in with all these medals, a World Cup winners medal, beat the Lions, he is a phenomenal player in terms of his career behind him. He has come in humbly and just wants to help Leicester do as well as they can.”