HENRY POLLOCK told his brother he could sleep in and miss the first half of England’s autumn opener against Australia.
But it was not just sibling Angus who joined the wide-awake club as the bleached-blond bombshell set Twickenham on fire.
Pollock’s appearance as part of a five-man England “Bomb Squad” was the spark for a second-half demolition of the Wallabies.
It was the Northampton back-rower whose third try in two England appearances as a replacement opened the floodgates.
Pollock, sporting a new look inspired by Chelsea star Alejandro Garnacho, pounced on a loose ball after Tom Roebuck won the battle for a steepler and headed for the line, regathering his feet after a tap-tackle to crash over.
Still only 20, and yet to make his first England start, Pollock is a headband-wearing superstar in waiting.
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Indeed, as the new pin-up boy of the Red Rose side, we might have to cancel the “in waiting” part.
And while boss Steve Borthwick and his side marked the comprehensive victory by demanding a BETTER display against Fiji next weekend, Pollock revealed his breezy confidence.
He said: “My brother’s over in Hong Kong right now. I hope he was waking up for the game.
“I told him to set his alarm for 50 minutes in. It was, ‘Second half buddy — set your alarm for that’.”
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Pollock and the rest of the quintet set the alarm bells buzzing for the Wallabies, who had somehow stayed in the game, with Harry Potter’s 85-yard interception countering Ben Earl’s own lung-buster after Roebuck gathered George Ford’s aerial.
But once the Lions front row of Ellis Genge, Luke Cowan-Dickie and Will Stuart — along with fellow tourists Pollock and Tom Curry entered the fray — that eighth England win in a row was inevitable.
The catalyst was the Pollock score, with scrum-half Alex Mitchell and Cowan-Dickie — from a driving maul — following him over the line.
Pollock admitted: “It’s about where you are on the pitch when the kick goes up — and I was in the right place.
“When I got the ball and saw the try line I thought, ‘S***, I’m in here’.
“Then I got tap-tackled and hoped there was no one close behind me. I dragged myself over. It was a cool moment.”
Pollock’s new hairdo was the talk of England’s camp last week, and he said: “I thought it would be different. I saw Garnacho’s hair, so I thought, ‘Yeah, f**k it, why not?’
“I’ve always liked him, so I decided to change it up.”
The youngster, even at this early stage of his England career, has the X factor.
Ford said: “I won’t talk him (Pollock) up too much.
“But you can see with the way he picked that ball up off his toes and finished it. He’s incredible sometimes.”
The Sale fly-half, like Borthwick and the rest of the England side, was still left “a bit unsatisfied” by the display.
Ford said: “We won comfortably and felt we were quite dominant but there’s plenty we need to be better at.
“We were inaccurate and lost the ball when we were threatening, so we didn’t get the continuity we wanted. We want to play with speed — but we can’t let the accuracy take a dip.”
Those lessons are easier when a team is winning, especially when it has such power off the bench.
Hooker Cowan-Dickie added: “Part of our jobs was to try and bring more energy — and I felt like we did that.
“No matter who you’re playing, you’re playing to win, you want to win, you expect to win. This team is building.”
The acid test of that will come against the All Blacks in a fortnight, although Borthwick insisted his priority is preparing for the physical test of Fiji.
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Borthwick said: “The players have been keen to develop as a team. You can’t just flick a switch and get success.
“But this is a group that’s hungry to learn and hungry to develop.”
