George Gregan likens 'next superstar' Henry Pollock to all-time great

Former Australia captain George Gregan has compared British & Irish Lions flanker Henry Pollock to his long-time team-mate and all-time great George Smith.

At the age of 20, England’s Pollock is the youngest member of Andy Farrell’s current Lions squad, the same position fellow flanker Smith found himself in 24 years ago on the other side of the fence. The key difference between the pair is that Pollock is yet to feature in the Test series so far, while Smith started at openside in all three Tests, winning the series in the third Test on his 21st birthday.

While both flankers, the duo are not stylistic carbon copies of each other, but Gregan has compared the temperament and big-match experience that they both possess. Smith went on to establish himself as one of the great flankers in the game after the 2001 Lions series, winning 111 Wallabies caps and facing the Lions again in 2013, and Gregan predicts a similar future for Pollock, describing him as the “next superstar”.

The 139-cap Wallaby made his comparison on RugbyPass TV’s Kick Offs and Kick Ons, where he was asked whether this is one of the all-time great Lions sides, and pointed out that Pollock cannot even get into the Test squad.

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“It’s got some depth, hasn’t it, particularly in the back-row,” he said when assessing the current squad.

“I don’t think they can ever really pick a bad Lions team. It’s like when you hear ‘that was a bad All Blacks team,’ really? I don’t really think so, you’re picking the best players from Scotland, Ireland, Wales and obviously England. There are only a couple of Welsh guys, and obviously Tomos Williams got injured, but Jac Morgan is some player and he couldn’t even get into the starting XV, he was in the 23 and there are others.

“We’ve heard a lot about Pollock, he’s going to be the next superstar. He reminds me in many ways, different but similar, coming onto the scene and having big-match experience and temperament, to Georgie Smith. He’s going to be a special player, but he can’t make that 23.

“I always find it hard to compare eras or teams. The one we played in 2001, nearly half that squad went on two years later to win a World Cup and beat us playing for England, so they were a pretty handy Lions team. I don’t think they tour with bad Lions teams, but it’s really well balanced.

“They’ve had injuries and they’ve had to call people in, and the people they’ve called in haven’t reduced the strength of the squad, they’ve added to it in many ways. I think it’s a bloody strong Lions squad and there are a lot of players who could have been starting at the weekend, or in that 23, that weren’t. So that shows you a lot about the quality of that squad that Andy Farrell and his coaches have had to choose from.”