The image of Louis Bielle-Biarrey going out of his way to taunt Henry Pollock when Northampton’s golden child dropped a ball on Sunday was a striking one.
The French international wing, shortlisted for the world player of the year in 2025, is not known for this sort of thing.
Ordinarily calm and composed, he momentarily lost the plot, bending down to scream in a disappointed Pollock’s face during Bordeaux’s Champions Cup pool match against Northampton.
That is what Pollock, rugby union’s Mr Marmite, can do to an opponent.
The pair chatted amiably enough during a break in play later which suggested no hard feelings from the incident. Pollock, the ultimate wind-up merchant, perhaps accepted that what goes around, comes around.
But the clip of Bielle-Biarrey baiting the brash young back-row duly did the rounds on social media.
Traditionalists would instinctively baulk at the idea of one player belittling another. It does not fit rugby’s code of honour.
Respect has always been one of rugby union’s foundation stones – respect for officials and opponents.
There are pressures, though, to move away from that default setting. Sport in the smartphone age is consumed more and more in bite-size chunks and the more eye-catching those chunks, the better.
Three seconds of one of the world’s best players emptying his lungs out at the game’s hottest young property attracts eyeballs – and eyeballs are what rugby craves.
For rugby that means great tries, huge tackles and better promotion of its personalities but it could also mean embracing some of the grubbier stuff, content – for want of a less awful word – that may appeal for less wholesome reasons.
Short-form vertical video is the new window in every sport – be that in the form of YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels or TikTok.
Three seconds of one of the world’s best players emptying his lungs out at the game’s hottest young property attracts eyeballs – and eyeballs are what rugby craves.
The Bielle-Biarrey/Pollock incident was not the only one of its type in Bordeaux with Damian Penaud also involved in a close-up confrontation with Ollie Sleightholme.
With less than five minutes left, the Saints were searching for the fourth try that would at least give them something to take home from Stade Chaban-Delmas on what had been a difficult afternoon.
Five metres from the Bordeaux line, Sleightholme was held in a choke tackle by the home defence and referee Gianluca Gnecchi blew for a defensive scrum.
The holders celebrated. But Penaud, who was lying on top of Sleightholme at the time, chose to do so by bellowing repeatedly right in his opposite number’s face. A scuffle blew up and the Italian official penalised Penaud for his actions, from which Northampton scored and picked up a potentially handy point.
If the referee did not care for Penaud’s unsportsmanlike behaviour, Pollock was within his rights to question why no action had been taken earlier by him against Bielle-Biarrey – or indeed Bordeaux centre Nicolas Depoortere, who was ruffling his blond locks as he was being bawled at.
It may have been a factor that there was no melee for the official to dampen down with Pollock commendably keeping his cool.
His critics – of which there were 32,000 vociferous ones inside the Stade Chaban-Delmas – regard him as self-obsessed but it was noteworthy that when he accidentally hurt Arthur Retière in a carry in the closing stages, Pollock checked in on Bordeaux’s replacement scrum-half as he left the field. As he should have done. But he still did so. Some of rugby’s traditions remain sacrosanct.
The balancing point between entertainment and authenticity, showmanship and integrity, is one which it is not easy to find, especially when it is moving all the time.
Rugby is tip-toeing into an edgier space elsewhere though as the digital world around it moves on apace. The Prem clubs’ social media teams have become more adventurous of late.
Saracens marked their victory at Newcastle earlier this season by putting out an image of a drinks can being crushed by a rugby boot, accompanied by the caption: ‘I guess Red Bull doesn’t give you wins.’
Sale Sharks took a jab at their Durban namesakes after beating them at the weekend with a playful ‘Loser changes their name, right?’
This might not be everyone’s cup of tea – you can imagine Saracens’ low-key director of rugby Mark McCall privately wincing at the lack of humility – but the move away from the usual vanilla PR did bring attention rugby’s way, which is the name of the promotional game.
The balancing point between entertainment and authenticity, showmanship and integrity, is one which it is not easy to find, especially when it is moving all the time. The sporting landscape is evolving faster than ever and the competition has never been tougher.
Rugby should never sell its soul but it needs to use every avenue it can to sell itself to the next generation of fans.
The scale of the recent losses announced at Prem clubs – £10m at Exeter, £8m at Sale, £3.3m at Harlequins – reflects the necessity to find a cut-through to more fans and sponsors.
Confrontation – which is after all what the game is built on – is one of the cards it has to play.
In the professional age, rugby union does not go in for full-on fighting anymore, but the legal physicality is a draw that the Prem is now promoting unashamedly. It has been a deliberate move on behalf of the marketeers to clip up the biggest tackles and dangle them in front of Generation Z.
The big bang theory is overly simplistic – Zoomers are not just attention span deficit zombies. The 2025 IMG Digital Trends Report identified what it called ‘the short form fallacy’, ramming home the point that modern audiences ‘crave depth, not just dopamine hits’. But it did concede that the Shorts, Reels and TikToks are ‘vital for discovery.’
Gloating at opponents was never – and should never be – part of rugby’s fabric but devilry can have an allure.
Nobody should be encouraging copycat sledging, but if it happens then it is fair game to use it. If rugby has to get its hands dirty to wash its face, then so be it.
Ask most established fans and the majority would take a dim view of Penaud and Bielle-Biarrey’s antics. That is how they have been raised in the rugby church. To the dyed-in-the-wool rugby supporter, it looks ugly and disrespectful precisely because it is.
Yet potential new converts may well be intrigued. It may cause them to ask: ‘Why are these athletes going at each other like this? What has caused all the beef?’
They may conclude that a sport where its protagonists are so emotionally invested is one worth checking out.
Show them to someone who is coming to the Champions Cup afresh and they might even imagine this is a tournament everyone is desperate to win, rather than a squad rotation opportunity.
Nobody should be encouraging copycat sledging, but if it happens then it is fair game to use it.
If rugby has to get its hands dirty to wash its face, then so be it.
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“Yet potential new converts may well be intrigued. It may cause them to ask: ‘Why are these athletes going at each other like this? What has caused all the beef?’”
In the case of LBB and DP who never act like this what has “caused all the beef” is the disrespectful antics of Pollock to players and spectators when he scores. That is the context that this article should have loudly noted.
What soccer will never retrieve is the reputation for respect that rugby has. Many of the type of parents of kids who play soccer could prefer rugby for that reason. They are long term bums on seats.
Promoting the show-off antics of Pollock will end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater. LBB and Penaud were giving Northampton some of what they love to give out themselves. If you don’t like receiving it then perhaps don’t give it.
Noticable that the article doesn’t delve into the provocation of supporters. That’s because it is illegal and citable. Pollock and others are normalizing this.