"I want them to hit" – Steve Borthwick wants to see Henry Pollock and Tom Willis battle for a 2025 Six Nations cap
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After initially missing the grade for a place in the 2025 Six Nations squad, highly rated back row Henry Pollock has come into camp for a crack at earning his senior England debut. The Northampton Saints man has been called up by head coach Steve Borthwick, as one of five new faces to jet off down to Girona for the pre-competition tune up.
Pollock arrived for his first senior England camp on Monday, following the untimely injury to back row Alex Dombrandt. The Harlequin sustained a calf injury whilst on club duties against Glasgow Warriors this past weekend, with a three-to-four week diagnosis for his time on the sidelines. Pollock has been a man who England fans have long been calling for at senior Test, after the 20-year-old became a leading figure in the U20s set-up and later made his mark for England A.
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Pollock starred with a Player of the Match performance in the Autumn, as Mark Mapletoft’s side handed Australia A a defeat in a stand alone match at the Twickenham Stoop. The young Saints man will be hoping to elevate his status from making the short walk from the Stoop to the Allianz Stadium, and compete in the 2025 Men’s Guinness Six Nations for his England debut. Borthwick addressed Pollock’s call-up at the 2025 Six Nations launch event in Rome, and is excited to see the bite that the young bolter will bring to the fold.
“I think when you look at Henry Pollack, and just a small case, he comes on for his club side Northampton, last weekend in a big European game, and he just thinks about finding a way to win the game. He help his team win the game (34-32 vs Munster), he got involved and brought his strengths as I mentioned.
“That is exactly what I want from each and every England player. Just find a way to help the team and that competitiveness, that drive, we’ve got in the back row. The work rate we have in our back row is very high. I want them to run. I want them to hit.”
Joining Pollock in the back row pecking order is Saracens eight-man Tom Willis, who looks all but nailed on for an involvement in the match day squad to travel to Dublin. Willis has been in superb form for Mark McCall’s side so far in their Premiership and Champions Cup campaigns, and is looking to build on his one England cap thus far. Willis made his Test debut in an away defeat to Wales, in the Summer lead up to the 2023 Rugby World Cup. Borthwick believes that the former Wasps and Bordeaux-Begles man is ‘desperate’ for an involvement, with a definitive ‘hunger’ for more minutes in the famous white shirt.
“I think Tom Willis is a player who has real hunger and drive.” Borthwick said. “He’s been desperate to be in, I used the word very deliberately. He’d been desperate for an opportunity in the England squad. He’s been in and around. He’s been on that edge, and now he’s in the squad, and now I’m looking forward to working with him.
“There’s certain things that we identified and asked him to consider improving upon if he wants to get to the level we think is required. He’s gone away and done his work really hard with the Saracens coaches. That’s a credit to him. Now, I’m looking forward to seeing him being in the England squad. It is a competitive area, a collaborative competition, but that back row is competitive, and I’m looking forward to seeing how they fight and bring more out of each other.”
The five new recruits into Steve Borthwick’s Six Nations training squad, reads as; Henry Pollock, Curtis Langdon (both Northampton Saints), Ben Spencer (Bath), Raffi Querke (Sale Sharks) and Arthur Clark (Gloucester). The players come in for the aforementioned injured Quins man Alex Dombrandt, the former England captain in hooker Jamie George, scrum half duo Alex Mitchell and Jack van Poortvleit, and Saints lock Alex Coles. Borthwick addressed how such is the life of an international rugby head coach, with the best laid plans sometimes going out the window in the lead up to a major tournament.
“As international coaches, you wait until you announce the squad, and then there’s more club games to be played, and you always know you’re going to have to adapt. You hope there’s not too many knocks and bangs. You don’t want players missing out on the opportunity to represent their country. So you know you’ve got to adapt. Now the opportunity has been presented to some other players, and you know some of those players are going to grab this with both hands and not let go, so I’m excited to start working with them.”
“The team has progressed a long way. You look at the performances in many of those (Autumn Nations Series) games and the (England) team is getting into winning positions against some of the best teams in the world. Now we’re at a different point in our journey. We start looking at this team and the age of this team and the number of captains in this team, and the team’s transformed enormously over the last few months. What we have got to do is keep pushing the way we’re trying to play, which i believe is the right way for the players that we have.”
So soon after being relinquished off his England captaincy, Jamie George has been ruled out of any immediate Six Nations involvements with a predicted injury spell of two-to-three weeks on the sidelines. Despite the unfortunate set-back for the front row, Borthwick was full of praise for his resident first choice hooker, and is hopeful to see his former skipper back within the action towards the mid stages of the tournament.
“I think that with Jamie’s experience, Jamie’s ability, all those factors, it means that we are very disappointed that he’s unavailable right now for the first few weeks of the tournament. Hopefully only in the first couple of weeks.
“I’m really disappointed for him, because he’s a proud man who represents England with enormous determination, and I managed to speak to him on the phone yesterday, I really sensed that determination to get back fit ASAP. So we’re looking forward to seeing him back on the grass.”
Rounding off the discussion in the Eternal City, Borthwick addressed his newly appointed captain and what he hopes to see from Maro Itoje throughout the campaign. The head coach called upon the top qualities that the lock possesses, and recognised how he is the man to bring the England supporters along for another ‘rollercoaster’ ride.
“We talked about the competitiveness you want in the teams. He’s (Maro Itoje) such a competitive player. He’s world class, and I think he’s going to even better. The same way he thinks deeply about the game. He thinks deeply about how to get into the game well, and then plays with this fierce competitiveness, and that’s a great balance, and it’s a great model for the players in the squad.”
“Our supporters are vital to this team. That’s everywhere, wherever we go, our supporters travel. You see the white shirts there, the players have spoken a lot about bringing the supporters on the journey. You mentioned recent results (in the Autumn Nations Series), what I found really interesting is that the supporters are seeing how the team wants to play.
“I think the supporters are feeling that energy, that emotion with the team. Some of those games were rollercoasters. You still watched the disappointment and frustration. The supporters were still stood there at the end, clapping the players, because they can see these players cared, they could see these players fight hard for the team, and reciprocally,the players want to make sure that they produce a team our sports are proud of.”
Borthwick has since joined up with his England squad in their Catalonian base camp in Girona. England commence their 2025 Men’s Guinness Six Nations campaign on Saturday February 1st, as they take on Ireland in Dublin’s Aviva Stadium.
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