{"id":327991,"date":"2025-08-08T13:39:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T13:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/327991\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T13:39:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T13:39:10","slug":"sam-warburton-worries-henry-pollock-will-fall-victim-to-justin-tipuric-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/327991\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Warburton worries Henry Pollock will fall victim to Justin Tipuric trap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former British and Irish Lions captain Sam Warburton worries that Henry Pollock will fall victim to the same fate as his ex-teammate Justin Tipuric.<\/b><\/p>\n

Pollock was the youngest player who toured with the Lions to Australia this year, and he impressed during the touring matches with his all-court skill set.<\/p>\n

The 20-year-old was unable to force his way into the matchday squad for the Test matches, but still left Australia with credit, according to Warburton.<\/p>\n

However, he is concerned that he will fall into the same trap as Tipuric did during the early stages of his career. Like Pollock, Tipuric had an incredible and exciting skill set for a back-rower, but he spent a big chunk of his career coming off the bench.<\/p>\n

Worry for Pollock<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though he did not feature in the Lions<\/a> Tests, he showed that he has got the temperament to play Test rugby on the big stage,\u201d Warburton<\/a> wrote about Pollock in his Times column<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is now surely a staple for the England squad. I just hope he doesn\u2019t fall victim too much to what Justin Tipuric suffered with Wales, where for the first part of his career he was considered a good bench player because of his impact skills. Versatility can be a burden as well as a boon. But Pollock has come back with a huge amount of credibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sticking on the topic of the back-rowers, Warburton concedes that Tadhg Beirne proved him wrong in the Tests after an underwhelming start to the tour.<\/p>\n

While Lions boss Andy Farrell still backed him for the Test matches against the Wallabies, he overlooked Josh van der Flier, selecting Tom Curry, Jac Morgan and Ben Earl instead.<\/p>\n

NZR chief\u2019s cutting remark to Stephen Jones after claims Lions \u2018should not\u2019 face the All Blacks<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Wayne Barnes\u2019 four Lions tour refereeing lessons include calling out Wallabies boss Joe Schmidt for not realising his \u2018actions have consequences\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Andy Farrell\u2019s tough task<\/p>\n

He believes that Farrell will now have to convince Van der Flier that he still trusts him in the big matches for Ireland despite snubbing him for the Lions Tests.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Ireland pick him [Beirne] above a young and upcoming number six you will be able to understand why, because when there is a big game, Beirne rocks up,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe proved a lot of people wrong, myself included, on that trip. I thought Ollie Chessum would start instead, but it was undoubtedly the right call to go with Beirne. Trust and having credit in the bank go a long way in the international game.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the flip side of that is that Andy Farrell, the head coach, may have some different scenarios to deal with when he returns to Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2013 there were 14 Welsh players originally selected on the Lions tour by Warren Gatland, but only Ian Evans didn\u2019t get a Test cap. He made a joke about it with Wales afterwards, but it hurt. A player will always take that personally. You will always be thinking: \u2018But you didn\u2019t back me when the stakes were at their highest.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo from this tour I think of Josh van der Flier, who missed out, but he will surely recognise that there was exceptional strength and depth in his back-row position. Tom Curry is genuine world class and proved it, and Jac Morgan was excellent all tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0<\/b>British and Irish Lions team-mates erupt over Josh van der Flier\u2019s brutal response to Jac Morgan<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former British and Irish Lions captain Sam Warburton worries that Henry Pollock will fall victim to the same…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[5313,393,7614,225,90462,678,12,4151,39573,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-327991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-british-and-irish-lions","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-henry-pollock","11":"tag-home-page","12":"tag-internationals","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-rugby","16":"tag-sam-warburton","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114993428569488256","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}