Pollard: I was not good enough

Cape Town - Bulls captain and flyhalf Handre Pollard says his performance against the Stormers this past weekend was not good enough. 

It was Pollard's first match in well over a year after he missed the entire 2016 season with a knee injury. 

With the Springboks looking for serious improvement in 2017, all eyes were on Pollard in the hope that he would instantly look like his old self. 

Instead, he kicked just one of his four attempts at goal and struggled to assert any kind of authority on proceedings.

In his defence, he never had nearly as much go-forward ball as he would have liked given the Bulls' struggles at set piece time in the first period, but Pollard wasn't making any excuses.

"It was awesome to be back and very nice to be on the field again," Pollard said of his return.

"Personally, it was not good enough from my side. There is a lot of work for me ahead but I’m looking forward to the challenge. I think as a team we showed a lot of character in the second half and we’ll take that into the week’s preparation for the Cheetahs." 

On his goal-kicking, Pollard could not put his finger on what exactly went wrong. 

"I actually struck the ball brilliantly, I just kicked it out the right the whole night," he said. 

The Springbok flyhalf, capped 20 times at Test level, was substituted with around 15 minutes to go on Saturday. 

It was not the return he would have hoped for, and certainly not the result he would have liked in his first match as Bulls captain, but there were positives. 

"I was feeling great. I’ve worked really hard on my fitness," Pollard said.

"It’s not easy standing behind the polls three times in the first half, but I enjoy being in a leadership position. Flyhalf is a leadership position anyway … it’s nothing big.

"They capitalised on our mistakes. There were too many errors from our side and we have to work on that … to use our opportunities better." 

The Bulls are in action again on Saturday when they take on the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein.