Henry Pollock, who turns 21 next week, is being pulled this way and that by agents, sponsors, brands, influencers and the media after a sensational 2025 in which he stormed into the England team and on to a British & Irish Lions tour.
On Sunday, he and Northampton Saints reunite with Bordeaux Bègles, who beat them 28-20 in a spicy Investec Champions Cup final last year, which ended with Pollock at the centre of a fight, as the French prop Jefferson Poirot grabbed his throat. Bordeaux also mocked Pollock by copying the “pulse-check” celebration he used when he scorched past Leinster in the semi-final. The bounding, blond boy had struck a nerve.
Northampton have no interest in clipping Pollock’s wings, however — rather they want to help him build his profile and help engage a younger following in the sport. Pollock laughs that his Instagram account has him listed as a “digital creator”, and not a “rugby player”.
“Does it actually say that?” he says, with a little nod. “OK. Digital creator then, maybe.”
It has led to some amusing exchanges between club and player. Phil Dowson, Northampton’s director of rugby, says he spoke to Pollock about managing his time and energy.
“I said, ‘You’ve got to be really choosy around what you want your name to be associated with,’ ” Dowson says. “The next day he came back and said, ‘Is Burberry all right?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, that’s probably a good one!”
Pollock celebrates a try for England during the victory over Australia on November 1
PATRICK KHACHFE – RFU/THE RFU COLLECTION VIA GETTY IMAGES
Pollock has been heavily criticised by many from the old school. Schalk Burger, the World Cup-winning Springbok flanker, has dismissed him as a “TikTok dancer” who “plays a bit of rugby on the weekend”. This sort of sneering — however tongue in cheek — pines for an era where tall poppies were slashed. Blessedly, attitudes are changing.
Pollock barely knows who Burger is — he was born two years before South Africa won the 2007 World Cup — and understands that you can now be a marketable athlete in the world of social media and an outstanding player on the pitch.
“I’m big on social media and push that aspect of my life,” Pollock tells The Ruck podcast from The Times. “What I’m like around that is very different. What I’m like on the pitch is very different to what I’m like on a Monday morning. I’m two different people, but one person with the same goals in life.”
Pollock plays up to his image of pantomime villain, enjoying the niggle. “I like playing games where I’m in it from minute one, I’m my aggressive self,” he says. “The confrontation and the physical aspect is why I play.”
Pollock speaks to The Ruck podcast at Franklin’s Gardens before heading off to Bordeaux for the resumption of a tasty Anglo-French rivalry
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After he was jeered at Section Paloise in December, where Saints beat Pau 35-27, Pollock posted on his Instagram account: “I’d boo me too”, in an attempt to fan the flames. He inserts himself into scraps that never really involved him, such as when the Argentinians were angry that Tom Curry had hit Juan Cruz Mallía late in England’s 27-23 victory at Twickenham in November.
Then there is that Champions Cup final in Cardiff last May. Poirot was handed a two-week ban for grabbing Pollock by the neck, and later Matthieu Jalibert called Pollock “unbearable” and “a classic Englishman you love to hate”. All this makes Sunday’s pool 4 showdown at the Stade Chaban-Delmas a tasty prospect. Pollock brushes off the beef from May, even if he thinks Bordeaux went too far.
“There’s no bad blood, I don’t think,” he says. “But you kind of look at it and go, ‘There’s not that much need for that.’ Obviously it’s the way they wanted to celebrate and I can’t change that. That’s all done now. He [Poirot] got his ban.
“I just want to credit them for how they played in that game. They were the better side on the day. I’m proud of the way we stuck in that game and showed fight, but hopefully it’s different this time.”
Those who know Pollock, or have even just met him briefly, see a different side to him from the confrontational nuisance who prowls the rugby field. Ellie Kildunne, the Red Roses star, noted recently how she feels Pollock is just a “misunderstood kid” expressing himself like the women’s players naturally do.
Would Pollock like people to know more about the “real” him? Or is he fine with the persona?
“I’m happy either way,” he says. “If they want to call me what they call me, I don’t really read into it. But it’s good for the sport. It makes it enjoyable, and the game on the weekend more exciting.
Pollock, who only a year ago was representing his country at under-20 level, celebrates a try for England against Australia at Twickenham with Luke Cowan-Dickie
PATRICK KHACHFE – RFU/THE RFU COLLECTION VIA GETTY IMAGES
“You obviously want to be yourself, and on the pitch I’m very different to what I’m like off the pitch, but no one really sees what I’m like off the pitch. But I don’t really care that much. The main thing is my coaches and my team-mates value me. Outside of that, people can make assumptions.”
Pollock has been deep into his analysis of Bordeaux this week, returning from a week off where worked on his conditioning and recovery while “being a normal 20-year-old”. The back-row forward has noticed his skills coming under extra pressure in games, an exciting challenge he must adapt to.
“I’m getting less time on the ball or shut down when I’m in defence,” he says. “That kind of aspect is enjoyable because it makes you a better player. If they want to come for me, they come for me.”
Dowson admits he is not well acquainted with the threads of the red carpet, but he never has to convince Pollock to work hard — at the moment he is working on his set-piece prowess, his collisions in defence and valuing the ball a fraction more in attack — but says he excels at the behind-the-scenes elements no one posts on social media. In that sense, Pollock reminds him of James Haskell, who spent one year with Saints in 2018-19.
“I hate to make the comparison, but Hask was great at that when he came here, having been at Wasps for so long,” Dowson says. “He would take the mickey, be a jester, but when it was business time, he switched on.
“Henry’s definitely got that. When we’re on, I don’t have to tell him to cut it out and get involved because he’s already doing it. That’s the same in the technical meetings, and how he drives the energy around the place.
Pollock has been partly responsible for a resurgence in the popularity of the game among the young
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“He might be charismatic but first and foremost he’s a competitor. He wants to win, play well and be in the best team and to get stuck in. I take those things first before any of the japes and the messing about, which is all on the periphery.”
Dowson does an amusing Pollock impression regularly around Franklin’s Gardens — shouting phrases such as “Yes bruv!” and “It’s actually well cold mate” — imitating his public schoolboy-bro drawl. It is affectionate, even if it is designed to humble him sometimes.
At Saints, Pollock is surrounded by successful, grounded friends such as Fin Smith, Tommy Freeman, Alex Mitchell, Fraser Dingwall and Alex Coles. They understand Pollock’s talent and want to help him enhance it, while keeping him in check.
“We’re way more open and understanding to the fact that we need to get people interested in the sport,” Dowson says. “With Henry, you look at the number of kids wearing his headbands and his haircut, and Pollock jerseys. For whatever reason, the way he plays and carries on, it’s caught the imagination — and that’s very positive.
“There’s lots of people who now have the freedom to be themselves and I think rugby needs that.”
Pollock’s standout moments from his breakthrough year, were obvious; going from the England Under-20 team to the Lions squad, via a senior debut in Wales where he scored twice, to the evisceration of Leinster at the Aviva Stadium and licking his lips at the haka before England beat the All Blacks.
But there is one, unseen memory he cherishes above all. The day he was picked for the Lions tour by Andy Farrell, he gathered with his Saints team-mates. After his name had been announced, alongside Freeman, Mitchell and Smith, he walked out of the room and it all hit him.
“I saw Fin crying, speaking to his mum and dad, Mitch going off to phone his family, then I sat in the car, tried to phone my mum and dad and they wouldn’t answer. I was like ‘OK, class. Great timing!’ ” Pollock says.
“I called my brother and he was like, ‘Mate, this is crazy, what have you actually done?’ I was like ‘I actually don’t know’. That drive back I will never forget. We then went to a bar with the boys and went, ‘This is actually happening, we’re going on the British & Irish Lions tour.’ Those moments no one sees, and they’re special.”
No doubt there will be more special Pollock moments to come in 2026. What are his new goals? “Definitely winning silverware with Saints,” he says, “and I want to start for England.” All of his five caps have come from the bench, so does he mind which starting shirt he takes first?
“Any number, doesn’t matter where it is,” he replies. Even wing, as Steve Borthwick has suggested? “You never know,” Pollock says.
The hurricane resumes again this Sunday in Bordeaux. Who knows what stunning path Pollock’s path will follow from here?
Bordeaux v Northampton Saints
Investec Champions Cup
Sunday, 3.15pm
TV Premier Sports