Henry Pollock as Prem Rugby’s best-paid player is laudable but laughable
Northampton and England forward’s agent says he should be earning ‘10 times’ as much as he is. Here is why that is simply not feasible...
Eddie Hearn’s desire to make Henry Pollock a £1m player is laudable. Every agent should look to maximise their client’s value and Pollock’s stock is soaring as he enters contract negotiations with Northampton Saints.
Yet in the context of English rugby’s ecosystem, it comes across as laughable that Pollock – who has made just one Test start – could become Prem Rugby’s highest-paid player.
The marquee question
The single biggest barrier to Hearn’s wish to make Pollock a seven-figure player is the presence of England fly-half Fin Smith at Franklin’s Gardens. Every Prem Rugby club can nominate one “marquee” player to sit outside the £6.4m salary cap. These tend to be a club’s highest-paid player. Bristol Bears, for example, used this designation to pay Charles Piutau £1m in 2017. However, Smith is Northampton’s current marquee player and is not going anywhere soon having signed lucrative terms last season.
The problem for Pollock is that he cannot become a marquee player at another Prem Rugby club under rules set to prevent poaching. Therefore any club wanting to sign him must do so within the £6.4m cap, which is problematic given the sums Hearn was quoting. Even accounting for ambitious clubs such as Newcastle Red Bulls and Bristol Bears, whose marketing teams would desperately want to get their hands on Pollock, no director of rugby is going to consent to losing a sixth of their cap space to a single back-rower who may only be available for 20 games a season.
Positional value
Two agents contacted by Telegraph Sport about the feasibility of Pollock earning £1m a year both suggested he start playing at fly-half instead. A recent Prem Rugby salary cap report revealed stand-offs are the best-paid positional group in the league. Indeed, Telegraph Sportunderstands that Bath fly-half Finn Russell is the best-paid player in England followed by a triumvirate of English stand-offs in George Ford, Marcus Smith and Fin Smith. Most directors of rugby view a quality fly-half as a non-negotiable ingredient in a title-winning team and so they occupy a special position in club’s spending plans, similar to how quarterbacks invariably dominate the NFL’s salary-cap spend.
Loose forwards, even quality ones like Pollock, are more ubiquitous and therefore more replaceable and less valuable in contract negotiations. Even England captain Maro Itoje, who arguably still boasts greater recognition than Pollock, is paid significantly less as a second row for Saracens than the league’s front-line fly halves.
Other avenues
If the Prem cannot afford Pollock then a bidding war could easily start abroad. Japan is known to offer the world’s highest salaries. However divisive Pollock might be among the French, there would definitely be a Top 14 president somewhere willing to chuck a chequebook at him. The problem, as Hearn himself admitted, is that Pollock is desperate to keep playing for England and, as the rules stand, the Rugby Football Union will not select players based overseas. In fact, Prem Rugby would probably argue this is precisely why the rule exists to keep the most marketable assets in the league.
One other possible exit route would be the rebel league R360, which is still on track for a 2028 launch according to a recent claim from founder Mike Tindall. France scrum-half Antoine Dupont was their original target, but pivoting to Pollock would represent the coup they are looking for, although the RFU has indicated those joining the league will still not be eligible for England selection.
Home sweet home
Speaking of R360, there were loud noises this time last year that Fin Smith was weighing up an offer to leave Northampton to join the breakaway league. In the end, the 24-year-old re-signed at the Gardens last October and no doubt the R360 speculation helped to secure him a hefty pay bump along the way. I would strongly suspect the same outcome with Pollock here and this represents a canny negotiating tactic by Hearn.
As Northampton showed by letting club captain George Furbank join Harlequins, they are prepared to be extremely disciplined with their pay structure. Hearn also risks overstating Pollock’s commercial value to the club who have been consistently selling out their home games for at least three seasons, long before his meteoric rise began. The club’s commercial earnings were up again last year but not to the tune where chief executive Julia Chapman can afford to bung director of rugby Phil Dowson an extra £500,000.
Hearn is right that Pollock is underpaid relative to his status, but this was because he and his then advisors signed a three-year £150,000 contract with the club in 2024 before his star exploded. Northampton recognise this and are confident they will keep their academy product, even if they will not upend their salary-cap structure to do so. Hearn could definitely earn Pollock more money elsewhere but, as he himself admitted, the 21-year-old has no desire to play anywhere else.
“The first thing I said to Henry was, ‘Do you want to stay at Northampton’?” Hearn said. “And he said, ‘Yes’. He said, ‘I love the club, I love the team, I love that I live 10 minutes away, and I think we’re going to win the championship again next year and I want to win championships’.”
[Source: Daily Telegraph]
