Pollock a proud Lion after ‘nailing it’ for Northampton and England
These are good times at Franklin’s Gardens.Five days after the squad celebrated one of the great victories against Leinster, four of them were picked by the British & Irish Lions.The atmosphere around the old ground has been electric ever since.And while you would expect the quartet, Fin Smith, Henry Pollock, Tommy Freeman, and Alex Mitchell, to be overjoyed, what’s more telling is how happy everyone else at the club seems to be on their behalf.The video of the team celebrating the news has already gone viral, and it turns out that on the night after the squad announcement, Fraser Dingwall had them all around to his house for a celebration dinner.
Dingwall, of course, had an outside shot at making the Lions squad himself, but swallowed whatever disappointment he felt after being left out and opened a couple of bottles of champagne for the occasion,They’re a young bunch, Mitchell is 26, Freeman 24, Smith 22, Pollock 20 – between them their Lions memories don’t go back much further than the last tour to Australia back in 2013 – and have come up together,“It’s so special to do it with three of your best mates,” says Pollock, who was playing junior rugby this time last year, and, as Mitchell says, struggling to break into the Saints’ first team back at the start of this season,Pollock says he only really started thinking about the possibility of making the tour in the spring, when he made his England debut, then scored a spectacular try against Sale in the Premiership,Pollock’s utterly irrepressible; he has risen through the sport like one of those champagne corks Dingwall was firing on Thursday night.
“He’s been fantastic, hasn’t he?” says Mitchell,“When he came through the academy last year, he had everything there, the energy, the talent, the mindset, so we knew he was going to be a quality player, but we just didn’t know how soon it was going to be,” Mitchell compares him to darts’ Luke Littler,“A lot of boys, when they come into the system, tend to overthink things, but Henry is just himself, he gives it his all, and he’s full of heart, and I think that’s what people love to see,”“He’s just nailing it, isn’t he?” Freeman says.
“He’s unbelievable, just a hell of a character,You just want to give him stick, but you can’t until he plays crap,” and they’re all still waiting for him to do that,“I just hope he continues doing his thing and strutting about the way he does,I do think rugby needs characters, it needs people to stoke interest,”Of course Freeman is right behind him.
He has been on a hell of a run himself, after scoring a try in every single round of the Six Nations, which put him in prime contention for a spot in the squad, and then rattled off a hat-trick in that semi-final against Leinster for good measure.“I was just trying to go about each week and try and ignore it all as much as I could,” Freeman says.“There were squads coming out with my name on it and squads that were coming out without it, so I was just trying to completely ignore it.And then when you sat down in that room for 30 minutes and you just start doubting yourself and questioning everything.You just never know until your name comes up.
”Sign up to The BreakdownThe latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week's action reviewedafter newsletter promotionMitchell was so nervous that he wasn’t even sure he wanted to watch the announcement with his teammates, “a few of us were like: ‘Should we watch it at home?’ But it was awesome having everyone there, an amazing experience,”Saints play Exeter this Sunday, but all four of them have been given the weekend off,They need it given how emotionally exhausting the last few days must have been,Mitchell says he was in bed by nine o’clock after leaving Dingwall’s little party,“I was shattered, the semi-final was hugely emotional, and then there were a lot of nerves on Wednesday and on Thursday.
” And besides, they have a run of big fixtures coming up, with their home game against Saracens on 17 May leading into the final against Bordeaux-Begles a week later,The last time Saints had four players in the Lions was back in 1997 and this squad have a chance to do what that one went on to in 2000, and win the Champions Cup,Beyond that, of course, there’s the thought of that first Lions match against Argentina in Dublin on 20 June and the thought of all the fun and glory,
Brains before brawn in modern rugby | Letters
Rugby is clearly in crisis as it attempts to address the escalation of concussion and its consequences in the modern game (World Rugby’s brain health service finds 25% of ex-players ‘at risk’ of problems, 30 April). Unfortunately the crisis will continue unless the regulatory authorities understand, accept and address the brain’s vulnerability to repetitive brain trauma. The human brain is an extremely fragile organ, having the consistency of soft butter, while it functions as a superb supercomputer. It is resilient to a few injuries but when these occur regularly in the fierce modern game over several years, this may lead to cognitive deterioration and dementia.The maintenance of a healthy brain must become a public health priority at every level, while every player at risk should receive regular cognitive assessment
Raducanu moulds clay to her will in straight-sets victory over Teichmann
It was during her days of preparation for the Italian Open that Emma Raducanu decided her approach to clay-court tennis needed to change. Instead of making significant adjustments to her game to try and suit the surface, she would make the clay adhere to her own vision. She resolved to take the initiative and dominate her opponents from the front foot.To her credit, she has effectively backed up those intentions in the heat of battle. Raducanu continued to build confidence and momentum in Rome as she produced one of her cleanest performances of the season to reach the third round with a 6-2, 6-2 win over the Swiss lucky loser Jil Teichmann
Competitive Itoje willing to learn from Mount Rushmore of Lions captains
Do you know what really stuck out as Maro Itoje sat chatting in the O2 Arena after the British & Irish Lions squad announcement? His biceps. This year’s Lions jersey is tight enough on the shoulders and sufficiently short on the arms to make their already well-muscled captain look like Popeye on steroids. Say what you like about the Lions squad but they have chosen a strong leader.It has worked for them in the past. Who can forget the pipe‑smoking Willie John McBride and his classic response – “Do you think there will be many of them?” – when an angry hotel manager in South Africa threatened to call the police to arrest a number of 1974 Lions who had been enthusiastically “rearranging” the furniture
Your Guardian Sport weekend: WSL finale, Lions stars on show and El Clásico
Join Rob Smyth setting up all Saturday’s action, with latest news and buildup from around the grounds. Before Everton travel to Fulham, our Merseyside football correspondent Andy Hunter considers the Everton players out of contract at the end of the season. Our WSL expert Suzanne Wrack will be on hand to guide you through all that’s at stake in Saturday’s final round – email her your questions at matchday.live@theguardian.com
The IPL is a good barometer in India: its suspension shows us how serious this is
It’s not often that two sets of people find themselves in the same situation on either side of one of the world’s most fractious borders.When Friday dawned, amid swirling rumours of missiles wrecking neighbourhoods and falsehoods about pilots being captured, cricketers in India and Pakistan sensed that something was about to give.The Pakistan Super League acted first, telling all its players, coaches and officials to stay in their hotel rooms, bags packed at the ready. At some point in the day the call would come, they were told, and they should be ready to head to the airport and fly to the United Arab Emirates where the last eight games of that tournament could be held.In India, the first signs of just how precarious the situation had become emerged the previous evening when a match between the Delhi Capitals and the Punjab Kings was interrupted after 10
Horse racing: East India Dock flies home for Chester Cup glory, plus a Saturday preview
With just 10 runners in total lining up for the two Classic trials at Lingfield on Saturday, the Victoria Cup at Ascot is certainly to attract to the lion’s share of the day’s betting turnover and Gleneagle Bay (2.40) is an interesting runner for Stephen Thorne’s County Dublin stable with Hollie Doyle booked to ride.Gleneagle Bay is lightly raced for a five-year-old, with just six starts in the book thus far, but has already been touched off in two valuable big-field handicaps in Ireland and made a very promising return to action at the Curragh in March. He travelled well until a furlong out before lack of a recent run started to tell, and the drop back to a stiff seven furlongs with Doyle doing the steering could be ideal.Lingfield 1
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