{"id":782704,"date":"2026-09-26T00:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T00:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/782704\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T00:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T00:38:09","slug":"henry-pollock-turns-up-to-first-game-with-big-surprise-as-viewers-all-say-same-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/782704\/","title":{"rendered":"Henry Pollock turns up to first game with big surprise as viewers all say same thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The England international debuted a bold new look on the opening night of the Gallagher Prem<\/p>\n

Henry Pollock surprised fans on the opening night of the Gallagher Prem(Image: TNT Sports)<\/p>\n

England international Henry Pollock debuted a bold new look on the opening night of the Gallagher Prem season.<\/p>\n

The Northampton Saints back-row managed to keep his new haircut under wraps ahead of kick-off against Newcastle Red Bulls, first by wearing a hat when arriving at Franklin’s Gardens. The 21-year-old Lion then wore a scrum-cap during the warm-up to keep fans waiting.<\/p>\n

Eventually, all became clear – with Pollock sporting cornrows.<\/p>\n

The England international isn’t the first player in recent seasons to suddenly turn to the style.<\/p>\n

Wales full-back Blair Murray debuted something similar last season, albeit only temporarily.<\/p>\n

Adam Jones was also convinced to get cornrows by Shaun Edwards during Wales’ 2008 Grand Slam, with the defence coach telling him he would “look cool”.<\/p>\n

Pollock had teased a new hairstyle on social media hours before kick-off.<\/p>\n

Posting a video of himself wearing a hat and claiming he wasn’t nervous, the post was captioned: “See you all tonight”.<\/p>\n

Upon unveiling his haircut, one fan posted on social media: \u201cPollock with cornrows, f*****g hell.*<\/p>\n

Another said: “Listen, Henry Pollock is a great player but fucking hell that Lid is absolutely diabolical.”<\/p>\n

Pollock was making his 50th appearance for the Saints, just days after signing a new deal with the Prem club.<\/p>\n

Content cannot be displayed without consent<\/p>\n

After weeks of speculation – with promoter Eddie Hearn claiming Pollock was worthy of a \u00a31m-a-year deal – the back-row finally signed an extension with Northampton this week.<\/p>\n

“New deal, new lid,” said TNT’s commentator upon seeing the new barnet.<\/p>\n

“Very much the Instagram generation. That will be doing the rounds later.<\/p>\n

“That will be trending. Henry’s new cut.”<\/p>\n

Austin Healey added: “Yeah, he’s beaten me to it. I’m releasing my new haircut next week.”<\/p>\n

The nature of the reveal, with Pollock keeping it under wraps until kick-off, had a shade of David Beckham to it.<\/p>\n

Becks was famously ordered by former Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson to shave his mohawk off in the tunnel at Wembley just minutes before the 2000 Community Shield.<\/p>\n

Beckham had kept his new hairstyle hidden from Ferguson by wearing a beanie hat over it until arriving at Wembley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The England international debuted a bold new look on the opening night of the Gallagher Prem Henry Pollock…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":782705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[7166,5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-782704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-england-rugby-union-team","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782704","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=782704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/782705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}