{"id":205170,"date":"2025-10-16T22:38:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T22:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/205170\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T22:38:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T22:38:16","slug":"how-saints-are-managing-return-of-lions-henry-pollock-and-fin-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/205170\/","title":{"rendered":"How Saints are managing return of Lions Henry Pollock and Fin Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Gallagher Prem has been spiced up over the past week by the return to action of its British & Irish Lions.<\/p>\n

The availability of such star names is a huge boost for the clubs, but there is also a recognition that, given the Lions tour to Australia extended their 2024-25 season into August, it will have taken a huge physical and emotional toll. <\/p>\n

They have all benefited from the mandatory ten-week stand-down period \u2014 five weeks of rest and five weeks of pre-season training \u2014 but coaches across the Prem are conscious that the season after a Lions tour can bring its own particular challenges. For some, that means dealing with fatigue; for others, such as Henry Pollock<\/a>, that means dealing with the frustration of not making the Test team. <\/p>\n

\"Henry<\/p>\n

Saints were initially the English team with the biggest Lions contingent. From left: Pollock, Smith, Mitchell and Freeman<\/p>\n

DAVID ROGERS\/GETTY<\/p>\n

Some clubs have more to manage than others. Northampton Saints were the English team who initially provided the greatest Lions contingent, although their tally of four \u2014 Tommy Freeman, Fin Smith, Alex Mitchell and Pollock \u2014 was later equalled by Saracens when Jamie George was called up during the tour. Owen Farrell, another mid-tour call-up, also became a Saracens player again at the start of this season after leaving Racing 92.<\/p>\n

Maro Itoje<\/a>, the Lions captain, returns for his first outing of the season, making his 200th Saracens appearance at home to Sale Sharks on Saturday. Freeman has recovered from the hip injury that forced him from the field in Saints\u2019 victory over Leicester Tigers last weekend<\/a>, and will line up away to Newcastle Red Bulls on Friday evening. There has been much talk of the possibility of Freeman shifting from the wing to play at outside centre for England this season, but he will further demonstrate his versatility by starting at full back for his club.<\/p>\n

Freeman started all three Tests for the Lions<\/a> and Mitchell featured in every matchday squad on tour, coming off the bench in two of the Tests, which the Saints\u2019 coaches will bear in mind over the coming weeks. <\/p>\n

\"Northampton<\/p>\n

Freeman is fit to start for Saints at the weekend despite coming off injured against Leicester last week<\/p>\n

PAUL CHILDS\/REUTERS<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s different for those four guys, because they all had different tours,\u201d Phil Dowson, the Northampton director of rugby, said. \u201cFreemo had a lot of rugby and played a lot of games. We want to make sure he stays fresh and he keeps love of the game, that he\u2019s excited about training, rather than seeing it as a slog. So we may have to manage him differently. Mitch would be quite similar, he played a lot of rugby in Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

In contrast, despite relishing the Lions experience at an early stage in their international careers, neither Smith, 23, nor Pollock, 20, were able force their way into the Test squads. While Smith starts at No10 against Newcastle, Pollock will be on the bench for the second consecutive game.<\/p>\n

\u201cHenry had such a rollercoaster last year, with his exponential rise to fame, and that needs to be managed slightly differently,\u201d Dowson said. \u201cHe was very frustrated that he didn\u2019t play in the Lions Tests and so he\u2019s got a bit of a scab to pick. He wants to take the next step on his journey to become a consistent starter for England.<\/p>\n

\"Northampton<\/p>\n

Pollock will start his second consecutive game on the bench for Saints this weekend<\/p>\n

MALCOLM COUZENS\/GETTY<\/p>\n

\u201cFin Smith has come from a Lions environment where he\u2019s training with Finn Russell, he\u2019s working with Andy Farrell and chatting to Johnny Sexton, and he\u2019s now just so hungry to input some of the stuff that he\u2019s learnt. Fin\u2019s a bit like Henry in that he\u2019s got a bit of an axe to grind. There\u2019s different ways of looking at it, each of them has come in after an emotional and profile-changing summer. We have to be mindful of that, talk to them about it and understand where they\u2019re at.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lions tours can act as a springboard for some players\u2019 careers, but others have struggled in the next season. After touring South Africa with the Lions in 2021, Louis Rees-Zammit, having made a stellar start to his international career with Wales the previous season, was dropped during the next Six Nations.<\/p>\n

After this weekend\u2019s fixtures, the England squad head into camp for three days to begin preparations for the autumn internationals and then, a week later, those England players leave for a month on international duty, with the first game against Australia at Twickenham a week on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\"Northampton<\/p>\n

Mitchell admitted he struggled early in his career with the change of styles from club to country<\/p>\n

DAVID ROGERS\/GETTY<\/p>\n

As they divide their time between club and country, the England players must also negotiate a disjointed programme, adjusting between different set-ups and styles of play. \u201cI struggled with that a bit early in my career, going back and forth,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cBut I\u2019ve had it that way for a couple of years now, you\u2019re always coming and going, you learn to appreciate it and take it for what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

With such a large contingent of international players, Dowson has seen that players learn to cope with the quirks of the season as they gain experience. \u201cThe person who was best at going from club to country and back again was Courtney Lawes, and that was because he\u2019d done it so much,\u201d Dowson said. \u201cLast year, we had Fin Smith finishing the Six Nations with his stock very high and then having to drop back into this environment. He\u2019d not done that before and as a starting No10, it takes some experimenting as to how you do that. <\/p>\n

\u201cJust going through that experience last year will be tremendously beneficial for Fin, he\u2019ll be better for it this year. It\u2019s a fragmented season for these boys and learning to deal with that is a skill in itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newcastle Red Bulls v Northampton Saints<\/p>\n

Gallagher Prem, Friday, 7.45pm
TV: TNT Sports Extra<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Gallagher Prem has been spiced up over the past week by the return to action of its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-205170","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}