Henry Pollock is living up to the hype and playing his way into Lions contention
Northampton Saints 46 Clermont Auvergne 24
FRANKLIN’S GARDENS — The kids jumping up and down with their cardboard homemade “Pollock can I have your boot please” signs are already aboard the bandwagon.
A couple of them were wearing Henry Pollock-style black headbands as tributes.
And the man himself – the very young man himself, we should say – justified the hype, of which there is plenty. His older acolytes in this rugby-mad town may well be saying “Pollock’s the dog’s b******s”.
This Champions Cup last-16 win for Northampton over Clermont Auvergne wasn’t heavy on set-pieces, and playing at No 7 rather than his other regular club position of No 8, Pollock had the licence to thrill.
It is necessary to qualify the word “regular”, as he only turned 20 in January, and had made just one Premiership appearance before this season.
Henry Pollock HAD to get involved 🤩
The @SaintsRugby rising star scores and the hosts are surely heading to the quarter-finals 😇#InvestecChampionsCup pic.twitter.com/h7OiHASThs
— Premier Sports (@PremSportsTV) April 4, 2025
Already, though, he is the kind of player you cannot take your eyes off, and in the first few minutes, Clermont were making sure not to, as their big second rows grappled with the youngster round the side of rucks, in a clear attempt to wind him up.
Pollock had a grumble to the referee about this holding. The highly experienced Andy Brace advised him to calm down and let the officials handle it.
So Pollock took the advice and cracked on with hurting Clermont in the best way, through the power and most importantly speed of his play.
The Northampton tactic from the off was to go for quick tapped penalties, moving the lumpen men of Clermont around.
A turnover penalty earned by Pollock in the first quarter came to nothing; ditto his first quick tap, when a pass was dropped. But he kept going, and a feature is his stamina as he racks up the involvements, reappearing in the middle of the field moments after an intervention on the wing.
It’s no surprise to know he excelled at the triathlon in his teens.
Now it is all rugby for Pollock, whose first England senior cap brought two tries in Wales three weeks ago, to add to a world under-20 title last summer.
His weaving try at Sale bouncing off Tom Curry and Luke Cowan-Dickie last week – described by ex-England captain Lawrence Dallaglio in these pages as a “worldie” – embellished a rapidly growing reputation.
He doesn’t mind “being lippy to the opposition and to the ref”, he told Dallaglio in a TV interview for this match, and that contributes to an out-there persona along with the strawberry-blond fringe flapping over that headband.
The Lions have tons of possible back-row choices for the Australia tour in July, and their head coach Andy Farrell has no need to develop players, but some have talked of Pollock making it by right.
More likely he will go to Argentina and the USA with England’s Lions-less squad.
Either way, it looks like they love him at Franklin’s Gardens, where the crowd is not given to simpering hero worship – respect is earned.
Pollock’s tap on 23 minutes led to first of three tries on the night for the in-form Tommy Freeman – the wing who now has nine tries in his last seven matches for England and Saints.
The home spectators cheered more of the Pollock quality bang on half-time.
George Moala, the gnarly 34-year-old centre with caps for the All Blacks and Tonga, and 200-plus games in Super Rugby and the Top 14, is nobody’s mug.
But as Moala trucked towards on the halfway line he was met face to face by Pollock who, like a pickpocket in plain sight, stripped the veteran of the ball.
It was a dose of the HP sauce that has got hard-nosed pundits like Dallaglio drooling. Another former England captain Chris Robshaw spoke, pre-match, of Pollock’s ability to get out of contact, even though he has “not filled out yet”.
A couple of phases later a panicky Clermont defence coughed up their second yellow card of the first half, and Northampton were 27-10 up at the break, and sailing into next Saturday’s quarter-final back here against the winners of Castres and Benetton Treviso.
Pollock’s repetitive energy was halted briefly on 66 minutes when he was winded and need a few deep breaths to restock the lungs.
He resumed with swift take-and-give pass out of a tackle in the Clermont 22 although his centre team-mate Fraser Dingwall couldn’t replicate as the ball went down the line.
But somehow you sensed there was going to be a flourish of a finish.
When Fin Smith dabbed a grubber through the Clermont defence, it was a foot race between Freeman and Pollock – and the flanker won it, and Freeman was happy to grin and bear it, as Pollock booted the ball into the stands in his signature celebration.
“Classic Pollock,” as Freeman said afterwards, and Pollock did the decent thing with a hug of thanks in return.
In the last minute, as in the first, he was still at it, with a turnover after the tackle to add to his 14 carries and 10 bursts across the gainline. At full-time, it was 46-24 to Northampton, and the new star had been excitingly at the heart of it.
