{"id":309035,"date":"2026-02-21T02:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T02:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/309035\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T02:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T02:16:08","slug":"ireland-must-cut-out-pollocks-time-and-space-insists-doris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/309035\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland must cut out Pollock’s time and space, insists Doris"},"content":{"rendered":"

A first England start at No.8 for their young back-row ball of energy Henry Pollock is exciting the home media corps as much as the sell-out crowd heading to Twickenham on Saturday for the Guinness Six Nations<\/a> clash with Ireland.<\/p>\n

Irish skipper Caelan Doris learned that first-hand on the eve of the match as he fielded question after question on his 21-year-old opposite number for the day from English reporters.<\/p>\n

In fairness, having faced him for Leinster against Pollock\u2019s Northampton Saints in last season\u2019s Champions Cup semi-final, Doris is in a good position to assess the potential impact from a vocal and expressive player whose teammates rave about and crowds adore but opponents tend to want shut up.<\/p>\n

Pollock is perhaps the epitome of an England side with a reputation for chirping at every opportunity, as Doris noted during his captain\u2019s run press conference at Twickenham on Friday, though the Ireland star said dealing with on-pitch noise was not a focal point of conversations within the squad this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, we haven’t put too much emphasis on that sort of stuff,\u201d Doris said. \u201cWe’re aware of that, like they like to celebrate things and get in your face over knock-ons and stuff like that, but again, it’s embracing the bit of adversity and kind of being next-moment focused and being calm around those bits and being able to bring a bit of physicality when it matters.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Similarly, he turned talk of an individual battle between rival No.8s into a wider debate, bringing in England\u2019s flankers Tom Curry and Ben Earl and his own back-row team-mates Tadhg Beirne and Josh van der Flier into the conversation.<\/p>\n

\"CaptainCaptain Caelan Doris during an Ireland Rugby media conference. Pic: Ramsey Cardy\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, probably more as a back-row unit we’ll look at that and breakdown is going to be a key element of that. They’ve got three very capable sevens, essentially they’ve all got experience at playing (number) seven as well, so, yeah, the breakdown is going to be a big one, but the contact area collision in general I think will be good.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, (Ben) Earl has obviously played a lot of 8 as well, and so they’re somewhat interchangeable there I would say.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The questions around Pollock persisted, though, and Doris was drawn towards the task of nullifying his rival\u2019s threat on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cCutting out time and space as much as possible. He’s got the ability to make something happen from not a whole lot, so we’re going to need to pressure him as a back row. They’ve got a lot of breakdown threats, but also the ability with ball in hand to make something happen. So it’s going to be a good battle there.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s obviously scored a lot of very good tries and he’s had some big moments and I’m sure he’ll be hoping to do the same tomorrow.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us, it’s about putting him under pressure as much as possible, cutting out time where possible and being connected around him.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over in the other camp, Pollock was also the main event as assistant coach Lee Blackett assessed the rise of England\u2019s not-so-secret weapon.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes that kid ever change?\u201d Blackett wondered. \u201cFrom watching him as an 18-year-old and everyone telling me about him, you see how he played Under-20s. You ask if he can survive in the Premiership, week-in, week-out. He rises to that pretty sharp.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you\u2019re talking business end of the European competition. Again, he rises. Then you talk about internationals and what does he do first game? He picks up a couple of tries against Wales. Every time he seems to step up, he seems to rise again.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s massively excited. He’s a guy with big moments and hopefully he has a couple more tomorrow.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Blackett added: \u201cIn terms of personality, I don\u2019t think there are many Henrys around. He\u2019s quite infectious, actually. He\u2019s great to work with, one of those guys who puts a smile on your face.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“In terms of attributes, there\u2019s so much speed and power around him for such a young lad. There are a few of them around but he\u2019s pretty special.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A first England start at No.8 for their young back-row ball of energy Henry Pollock is exciting the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54046,61,60,43,15551],"class_list":["post-309035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-irish-rugby","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-six-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}