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These are good times at Franklin’s Gardens. Five days after the squad celebrated one of the great victories against Leinster, four of them were picked by the British & Irish Lions. The atmosphere around the old ground has been electric ever since. And while you would expect the quartet, Fin Smith, Henry Pollock, Tommy Freeman, and Alex Mitchell, to be overjoyed, what’s more telling is how happy everyone else at the club seems to be on their behalf. The video of the team celebrating the news has already gone viral, and it turns out that on the night after the squad announcement, Fraser Dingwall had them all around to his house for a celebration dinner.
Dingwall, of course, had an outside shot at making the Lions squad himself, but swallowed whatever disappointment he felt after being left out and opened a couple of bottles of champagne for the occasion.
They’re a young bunch, Mitchell is 26, Freeman 24, Smith 22, Pollock 20 – between them their Lions memories don’t go back much further than the last tour to Australia back in 2013 – and have come up together. “It’s so special to do it with three of your best mates,” says Pollock, who was playing junior rugby this time last year, and, as Mitchell says, struggling to break into the Saints’ first team back at the start of this season.
Pollock says he only really started thinking about the possibility of making the tour in the spring, when he made his England debut, then scored a spectacular try against Sale in the Premiership.
Pollock’s utterly irrepressible; he has risen through the sport like one of those champagne corks Dingwall was firing on Thursday night.
“He’s been fantastic, hasn’t he?” says Mitchell. “When he came through the academy last year, he had everything there, the energy, the talent, the mindset, so we knew he was going to be a quality player, but we just didn’t know how soon it was going to be.” Mitchell compares him to darts’ Luke Littler. “A lot of boys, when they come into the system, tend to overthink things, but Henry is just himself, he gives it his all, and he’s full of heart, and I think that’s what people love to see.”
“He’s just nailing it, isn’t he?” Freeman says. “He’s unbelievable, just a hell of a character. You just want to give him stick, but you can’t until he plays crap,” and they’re all still waiting for him to do that. “I just hope he continues doing his thing and strutting about the way he does. I do think rugby needs characters, it needs people to stoke interest.”
Of course Freeman is right behind him. He has been on a hell of a run himself, after scoring a try in every single round of the Six Nations, which put him in prime contention for a spot in the squad, and then rattled off a hat-trick in that semi-final against Leinster for good measure.
“I was just trying to go about each week and try and ignore it all as much as I could,” Freeman says. “There were squads coming out with my name on it and squads that were coming out without it, so I was just trying to completely ignore it. And then when you sat down in that room for 30 minutes and you just start doubting yourself and questioning everything. You just never know until your name comes up.”
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Mitchell was so nervous that he wasn’t even sure he wanted to watch the announcement with his teammates, “a few of us were like: ‘Should we watch it at home?’ But it was awesome having everyone there, an amazing experience.”
Saints play Exeter this Sunday, but all four of them have been given the weekend off. They need it given how emotionally exhausting the last few days must have been. Mitchell says he was in bed by nine o’clock after leaving Dingwall’s little party. “I was shattered, the semi-final was hugely emotional, and then there were a lot of nerves on Wednesday and on Thursday.” And besides, they have a run of big fixtures coming up, with their home game against Saracens on 17 May leading into the final against Bordeaux-Begles a week later.
The last time Saints had four players in the Lions was back in 1997 and this squad have a chance to do what that one went on to in 2000, and win the Champions Cup. Beyond that, of course, there’s the thought of that first Lions match against Argentina in Dublin on 20 June and the thought of all the fun and glory.
