Montpellier (AFP)

Montpellier hopes to have found in the South African world champion Handré Pollard, who must enter the scene for the first time on Saturday in Racing, the attack leader he has been looking for since the departure of François Trinh-Duc.

A new star arrives in the Top 14. Haloed from the world title won in Japan at the beginning of November, the opening half will be responsible both for animating the game of a team looking for a style and for appeasing a locker room marked last season by a break with the old generation of South African players.

Xavier Garbajosa is eager to learn his new gem, held back by a broken cheekbone in the final against England (32-12), but first expects him "to flourish, to be burst out, let him enjoy playing rugby ... "

For the MHR coach, Pollard comes "not to take the keys to the game project, but to integrate into a group".

His job will be "not to make it progress, it would be pretentious, but to bring it to its best level". But "you have to leave some time too" at Springbok. For Laurent Travers, the Racing coach, it will take Pollard little: "High-level players, benchmarks, they have them quickly".

Montpellier did not rush the return of its prestigious recruit, who signed for three years for his first contract in Europe after spending most of his career at the Blue Bulls, the Pretoria franchise.

"Handré arrives in all humility, with desire and enthusiasm", assures the technician from Montpellier.

The MHR has an undeniable master to play, but will Pollard be able to reconcile contrary styles, the South African line and the Toulouse school dear to Garbajosa?

- Between South African and Toulouse style -

The new Hérault coach is not worried. "The image you have of Pollard goes through a game project of a selection that asked him to play like that," he explains.

But "Handré has the technical capacities to play any form of game, to manage, to attack the line, to move the ball to the foot, by hand ... The most important for us is to put him in confidence, and the best way is to make him play on his qualities. The goal is not to transform Handré Pollard into a line attacker if he is not. "

The N.10 brought to triumph the Springboks of Johan Erasmus by the efficiency of its footwork: it concretized the power of the forwards which laminated the Japanese, the Welsh and even the English.

Garbajosa also intends "to use a boy who brings this rigor, that the others say that he may be world champion because he arrives a little before and leaves a little after training".

Because it is above all this world crown that arouses a strong expectation on the side of Montpellier, especially as the MHR stagnates since the failure in the final of the Top 14 in June 2018 against Castres.

Since the thwarted departure in 2016 of François Trinh-Duc, from the rugby school of Pic Saint-Loup as three executives of the workforce (Picamoles, Ouedraogo and Galletier), Montpellier is looking for a half-size opening able to carry a difficult to read game project.

In turn, the modest Demetri Catrakilis or more recently the former All Black Aaron Cruden (30, 50 caps), broke their teeth at the head of a team shared between a South African style, supported by a strong colony, and a Toulouse movement game.

The No. 10 Boks came to successfully synthesize and launch the Pollard era in Montpellier.

© 2019 AFP