Even for those familiar with Henry Pollock’s extraordinary exploits, last Friday was quite astounding.
Early in the second half of Northampton Saints’ tight loss to Sale Sharks, the 20-year-old tyro scorched 50 metres for a remarkable solo try. He pinged like a pinball off Luke Cowan-Dickie and Tom Curry, two of the best one-on-one tacklers in the country, before regathering his own delicate chip to finish the job.
STOP THAT HENRY POLLOCK.
— Tight Five Rugby (@TightFive_Rugby) March 28, 2025
I've seen enough, get him on the plane to Australia.#GallagherPrempic.twitter.com/FnMEmYCF7s
Combining speed, balance, deceptive power and skill, the moment was so exhilarating as to eclipse another awesome highlight in the first period. After accelerating onto Fraser Dingwall’s pass to pierce the defensive line, Pollock had brushed away one defender and swerved past another. When a scrambling opponent eventually caught up, he turned to loop a one-handed offload to Alex Coles.
Henry Pollock.#GallagherPrempic.twitter.com/Zhq6PlSBm3
— Tight Five Rugby (@TightFive_Rugby) March 28, 2025
“Virtually every single game, he’s doing something that would be a special moment in any other player’s season,” states Jason Sivil, an integral member of Northampton’s strength and conditioning team who has worked with Pollock since the latter was 16.
An expert in biokinetics, Sivil joined Saints from Gloucester to continue an impressive career that began in his native South Africa. He is well placed to categorise Pollock’s athleticism as truly exceptional. “I’ve been working in this field for 20 years and there are very, very few players as gifted as Henry is,” Sivil adds.
“If Henry was in South Africa, he’d be an outlier. There are people physically put together like him, but not a lot of them. It wouldn’t matter where Henry is in the world, he would be a stand-out.”
Now in his second year with the Saints senior squad, Pollock has bulked up to around 105kg. He can squat 230kg for three reps and bench press 140kg for two, sprinting speeds of around 10m per second – admirable for outside backs – and jumping 54cm vertically into the air from a static start. But physical prowess means little without a resolute mind-set.
Grant Seely, the former Northampton flanker, arrived to teach at Stowe School in the same year that Pollock came into the fourth form at 13 years old. One of Seely’s earliest impressions remains vivid.
“He wasn’t in anyway big,” he says of Pollock. “He was actually built like a long-distance runner, if anything. We had this school cross-country and he came second out of over 100 in that for his ...
