Henry Pollock is already the Lions' biggest attraction

Telegraph

08-05-2025

It was the Henry Pollock appreciation society inside London's Indigo O2 Arena, with perhaps the most exhilarating player in the northern hemisphere earning one of the highest accolades in his sport at the age of just 20. The audible gasps that greeted his call-up to the British and Irish Lions turned quickly into cheers so raucous, it felt as if his family and friends were in the building, while a video link showed him being mobbed at the Northampton training ground by his team-mates. Despite playing just 32 minutes for England, scoring two tries, this astounding prodigy has now muscled his way into the Lions back row, the most fiercely-contested area of Andy Farrell's squad. Truly, there has never been a trajectory quite like it.
A career unfolding at warp speed took a startling turn here, with the announcement of Pollock's name triggering the type of ovation to confirm him as a generational talent. To describe his rise as meteoric would always be to understate it. Here is a player still technically eligible for the Under-20 World Cup in Italy this summer, and yet instead he is bound for Australia, ready to test his phenomenally combative style against the Wallabies on a Lions tour. It stands as ultimate proof of the adage that if you are good enough, you are old enough. 'For a player, it doesn't matter what age, performing like he has, it's there for all to see really,' Farrell said.
Unbelievable moments 🦁
Watch as our boys found out they are going on the @lionsofficial tour together 🖤💚💛 pic.twitter.com/5J0B0Fvm36
— Northampton Saints 😇 (@SaintsRugby) May 8, 2025
Pollock is the very definition of a Lions bolter, thundering into the reckoning even with his Test career still in its infancy. It is testament to his extraordinary gifts that his selection feels neither a gamble nor a shock. His statistics at Leinster last weekend illustrated why, as he made the most tackles and hit the most defensive rucks of any player in the Champions Cup semi-finals, as well as making the most metres of any forward. Just to cap it off, he contributed a sumptuous solo score, scything between RG Snyman and Andrew Porter before side-stepping Sam Prendergast with ease. This human wrecking ball humbled one of the giants of European rugby. In the end, it proved to be the last decisive audition of a white-hot highlights reel.
Henry Pollock...WOW! 😱😱
"He's done it again, but today is on another level!" 🎙️
Just absolutely explosive running to score a big try for @SaintsRugby 😇 #InvestecChampionsCup pic.twitter.com/yN9iryaW8r
— Premier Sports (@PremSportsTV) May 3, 2025
There has been a sense of wonder for some time around Pollock, as dazzling for Stowe school as he was for England Under-18s, plus a key member of the national Under-20 side who secured a Six Nations title by beating France in a ferocious atmosphere in Pau. Sport is littered, of course, with wunderkinds who have not made the grade in the senior ranks. It is to Pollock's credit that he has bucked the trend, becoming integral to Northampton's Premiership line-up despite his tender years. As Phil Dowson, his director of rugby, has put it: 'He doesn't need protecting. He's mad for it. Often, if not always, you'd have 18 or 19-year-olds who might be overawed. But he feeds off that, and that's just because he's a slightly different character.'
Pollock is setting the standard for precocity as a Lion at 20. Even Maro Itoje and Jonny Wilkinson were 22 by the time they claimed the distinction. He becomes the fourth 20-year-old of the professional era to be picked at this level, alongside Leigh Halfpenny, Stuart Hogg and Louis Rees-Zammit. He will, at least, be kept in check by his peers, given the now-traditional responsibility as the youngest player of looking after the mascot: a cuddly lion nicknamed BIL, the team's acronym. That is perhaps the only ritual by which he will have to abide. Otherwise, Pollock will have licence in Australia to do what he does best, creating mayhem wherever he roams.