Henry Pollock contract call a win for everyone – Andy Goode

Henry Pollock’s new contract at Northampton represents a win for everyone, even if it might not be worth the million pounds a year that Eddie Hearn was after.

Let’s face it, the reported Newcastle offer came about because I don’t think anyone expects him to move abroad at his age and they’re the only club in the PREM who could offer him anywhere near that amount of money.

Pollock wants to win things, develop his own game and make an even bigger impression on the international stage though, as well as earning as much as possible along the way, and there’s absolutely no doubt that Saints is the right place for him.

If the new contract, which is expected to be announced this week, is worth in the region of the rumoured £450,000 per year, then it’s a fantastic deal for him as a 21-year-old back rower but he has absolutely earned it.

His force of personality and the ‘Hearn effect’ have definitely played a part but he was Player of the Match in the PREM final a few months ago and the best player on the pitch in the semi-final too, despite narrowly being pipped to the award by Fin Smith that day.

He’s the youngest ever winner of the Peter Deakin medal, has done it on the biggest stage in the club game already and you’d be hard pushed to name a back rower in the PREM who has a bigger impact on games than he does.

His existing contract was coming to an end at the conclusion of this season but the new one adds another three years to that and Saints will be delighted to have him tied down for a few more years.

The new contract is likely to be worth around three times what he was on before and, crucially, puts him among the top earning players in his position in the league.

There wasn’t a single back rower earning in excess of £400,000 per year in the 2023/24 season, although that did go up to 8 per cent in 2024/25, and the average salary for the position is £192,000 according to PREM Rugby’s Salary Cap Report.

The other high-profile rugby recruit to the Matchroom Talent Agency, Finn Russell, is earning around a million pounds a year at Bath, but he is 33 years of age, a fly-half and the marquee player.

That slot at Northampton was filled not so long ago by England’s first-choice number 10, Fin Smith, so there’s an element of timing to this as well.

I don’t think it’s speaking out of turn to suggest that, as impressive a businessman as he is, Hearn may not have had a full grasp of the salary cap system and what players in each position tend to earn when he made his comments about what his client was worth.

Even with that in mind though, he wasn’t too far wide of the mark as Pollock is a star already and one who is only going to shine brighter in the years to come, so in many ways he is worth a million pounds a year and a club somewhere might even be willing to pay it.

That would almost certainly be abroad though and, with the rules around playing for England as they are, any move overseas would be a big mistake at this juncture.

I loved my time in the north east and it was right for me at that very different stage in my career but the Red Bulls probably aren’t going to be challenging for honours in the next couple of years, despite the new investment at the club.

The reality is that they’ve finished bottom of the pile for four straight seasons and, while they work their way up the ladder, they are both having to pay players more and their name is being leveraged because of the influx in money when negotiations are taking place.

I doubt there was a massive offer on the table from them anyway but Pollock is in the right place with Phil Dowson and Sam Vesty looking after him and trebling your money isn’t bad going.

The Saints management deserve a huge amount of credit for how Pollock has developed already, and Steve Borthwick should take note but the 21-year-old could become a bona fide world star over the next 14 months.

He’s already the most talked-about English player in the game, and it’s crazy to think that he’s still only started one Test for his country, but that will surely change in the coming season, and there is a World Cup on the horizon after that.

There aren’t really any losers in this situation, whether you look at it from the angle of player, club, Eddie Hearn, Steve Borthwick or anyone else. George Furbank might be the only one who could argue with that after his move to Harlequins.

The England full-back, who has had no luck with injury and illness over the past couple of years, was forced to move on, really if he wanted to get paid what he was worth as he approaches his 30^th birthday in October, as Northampton rightly focused on offering improved terms to the likes of Tommy Freeman and Fin Smith as well as Pollock.

Pollock’s new contract is a fair and good deal for both the player and club. Northampton now have to extract as much value as they can from the 21-year-old’s image and wow factor, while Pollock makes the most of being at arguably the best club in the country as he strives to become an international starter and even bigger star on the grandest stage of all.