{"id":299342,"date":"2025-12-04T21:58:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T21:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/299342\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T21:58:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T21:58:09","slug":"henry-pollock-jamie-george-on-englands-brilliant-idiot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/299342\/","title":{"rendered":"Henry Pollock: Jamie George on England&#8217;s &#8216;brilliant idiot&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Jamie George says England team-mate Henry Pollock is a personality without precedent in rugby, adding the 20-year-old back row is a &#8220;genuinely fascinating&#8221; character.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Pollock enjoyed a breakthrough campaign last season, which began on the bench for Northampton and ended with two tries on his England debut, appearing in the Champions Cup final, and earning selection for the British and Irish Lions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">His on-pitch energy, exuberant celebrations and unabashed confidence have made him one of the game&#8217;s stars, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/reel\/1140837808099735\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">his lip-licking face-down of New Zealand&#8217;s haka, external<\/a> and role <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/c9v1vk404j8o\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">in a celebratory TikTok dance last month<\/a> just the latest in a string of viral moments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">His Saints team-mate Fin Smith revealed on Wednesday that Pollock had sent Lions assistant coach Johnny Sexton pictures of Sexton crying after Ireland were knocked out of the 2023 Rugby World Cup as part of a running joke between the two during this summer&#8217;s tour of Australia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Pollock and I had the funniest relationship with [Sexton] ever, we just took the mick out of him the whole time,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sounds\/play\/m002mldb\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Smith told the Saints Show.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Johnny was great and enjoyed having a bit of banter with us too.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Henry is different &#8211; I have never met anyone like him,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sounds\/play\/p0mk8d8g\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">George told Rugby Union Weekly<\/a> of Pollock.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He is himself, unapologetically himself and he is genuinely fascinating &#8211; he is an energy ball I have never seen before.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He has an insane level of confidence. He walks into the room and tries to dominate everything and the kid is 19. It is mad.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;But he is genuinely brilliant. He is an idiot, but he is our idiot.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jamie George says England team-mate Henry Pollock is a personality without precedent in rugby, adding the 20-year-old back&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-299342","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\/299342","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=299342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}