The Lions’ youngest player has revealed their mission to achieve immortality in the next three weeks, as Henry Pollock outlined the tourists’ target is an historic Test series whitewash.
Andy Farrell and his squad landed here in the capital of Queensland on Sunday, buoyed by a 48-0 win in their final pre-series fixture in Adelaide and setting their sights on an achievement which would go down in British and Irish rugby folklore. The Lions have only even claimed a clean sweep of three Tests or more on three previous occasions; in 1891 in South Africa, in 1904 in Australia and in 1927 in Argentina.
Even the legendary ‘Invincibles’ of 1974 didn’t win every Test; drawing the last one against the Springboks for a 3-1 result. Since that epic tour, the Lions have only even won three out of 12 series they have played, let alone whitewashing any of their southern-hemisphere rivals. But that is what the class of 2025 are hell-bent on achieving against the Wallabies.
‘We want to come here and be the best Lions team ever,’ said Pollock, the Northampton and England back-row sensation, aged 20. ‘We’ve been talking about that loads and 3-0 is definitely on the table, hopefully.
‘I guess we’re all trying to work towards the same thing. We’re all trying to be the best team we can be and get that 3-0 win.’ Fellow back-rower Ben Earl also emphasised the Lions’ desire to take their place in history, adding: ‘There’s a big thing that we’ve been speaking about; about being one of the best Lions teams ever.’
Asked for his reflections on the demolition of an Australia-New Zealand Invitational XV on Saturday, Pollock added: ‘Yeah, massively pleased. We nilled them, which was amazing. Credit to our defence. We’ve been working hard on that over the couple of weeks and we’re just pleased that we got the whitewash. Now we can build into a strong opening first Test.’
Henry Pollock has revealed that the Lions are targeting a historic Test series whitewash
Andy Farrell’s team secured an emphatic 48-0 victory in their final pre-season fixture
Pollock outlined that his team are determined to become the greatest Lions side ever
While the trans-Tasman side were unable to halt the Lions juggernaut in Adelaide, former All Blacks head coach Ian Foster – who was part of the vanquished management team – claimed that Andy Farrell will still have some awkward challenges to overcome in the weeks ahead. Asked to rate the tourists, he paused and said: ‘Yeah… they’re good… I think they’ve got a lot of work to do next week.
‘They’re a quality team, good depth, but that brings complications sometimes at selection time, so I think the test of the tour is how they deal with selection in the next week and keep the rest of the squad happy.
‘The Lions will be happy with all the wins to date, they’ll be happy with a lot of players and they’ll probably be happy that they haven’t actually put a performance together yet that they really, really want. They don’t want to do that before next week, so they’ll be primed. But if the Wallabies can be tough enough at the ball-carry to be able to get some front-foot ball, they’ll be a challenge.’
Meanwhile, the Lions have called up Ireland prop Tom Clarkson as cover, despite no indication of any injuries to the three tightheads already in the squad. The 25-year-old – a Test novice – is flying to Brisbane from Lisbon, after scoring a try in Ireland’s record-breaking 106-7 victory over Portugal.