Pollard off to Japan

Pretoria - The Blue Bulls Company on Tuesday confirmed that flyhalf Handre Pollard has been given permission to join Japanese outfit NTT Docomo Red Hurricanes for a three-month spell at the end of the year.

Pollard will join the club in November 2015 and will return to Loftus Versfeld at the end of January 2016, in good time for the 2016 Super Rugby season that starts in mid-February.

"HandrE is contracted to the Bulls until the end of 2017 and we are already in talks, with assistance from SARU, to extend that to 2019," said BBC High Performance Manager, Xander Janse van Rensburg.

"Handre had a clause in his contract to go to Japan and we are happy to release him for that. In the end, it will give us more leeway to keep Handre at the Bulls for an extended period."