Northampton Saints director of rugby Phil Dowson believes more players could follow Henry Pollock and work with promoters like Eddie Hearn to grow their profile.
On Tuesday, Pollock put pen to paper on a multi-year extension with his boyhood club, with the England international agreeing a deal worth £400,000 per year.
At just 21, Pollock already has 13 England caps and made five appearances for the British & Irish Lions during last year’s tour of Australia.
Pollock’s profile continues to grow, with the flanker becoming the first rugby union player to join Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Talent Agency at the start of the year. Dowson revealed that the boxing promoter “drove as hard a bargain as he possibly could” during negotiations.
Reflecting on Pollock’s decision to join Hearn’s agency, Dowson said: “I think we’ll see more of it.
“I think headlines and social media engagement, and all that, is positive for the game. Fundamentally, I talked to the coaches about this. We want more people watching the game, more people talking about the game and, ideally, most importantly, more people playing the game at loads of different age groups.
“If Henry Pollock and Matchroom are getting some traction with the public, I think we should encourage that, but also take into account that we’ve got to continue to deliver that in the right way, and I think we have them.”
Hearn told The Telegraph that he believes the 21-year-old is worth more than seven figures, predicting Pollock’s value will “skyrocket” over the coming years while also arguing that the value of rugby will rise.
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Eddie Hearn believes that Pollock is the future of rugby and says by paying him what he deserves, he can grow the sport to another level
Dowson also lifted the lid on the boxing promoter’s role in the negotiations, lauding him for helping him grow Pollock’s profile, adding that part of the negotiations were handled by a “traditional rugby agent”.
“Eddie’s been excellent. He’s raised the profile of the game,” Dowson said.
“He’s raised the profile of Henry and he’s done what an agent’s supposed to do. He’s driven as hard a bargain as he possibly could.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for Eddie and how he goes about his work and some of the stuff he said in the media was really pertinent.
“I think there’s elements of the contract which weren’t done by Eddie, which were done by his traditional rugby agent.
“There are things from a marketing point of view and the extracurricular stuff that Eddie really looks after Pollock with, which we’ll see more of.
“He wasn’t necessarily doing every single negotiation from a rugby point of view.”
Pollock has explained in the past that he had an open mind to the next steps of his career, but on Tuesday said he was “massively happy to re-sign with Saints”.
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Hearn had previously said that Pollock was worth at least £1m
Some fans had questioned why the negotiations had taken so long to complete, with the flanker’s loyalty coming under scrutiny, but Dowson said the process was made easier by Pollock’s desire to stay.
“It’s still his job, it’s still his career. He needs to make sure he’s getting the right deal for his aspirations and all those other elements that come with it,” Dowson said. “I don’t just mean from a financial point of view, I mean from a full, holistic sort of point of view.
“Would there be loyalty in sport if he wasn’t offered a contract? Would that be us not being loyal? I think we’ve got to be careful around that.
“He’s playing really well. He’s got lots of people talking about rugby. That’s great. We wanted to keep him and he wanted to stay. That’s a great position for us to start negotiations from, and that’s the great thing about sport.
“People can have an opinion around it, but I don’t think it was overly dragged out, to be honest, and I don’t think it was ever done… there was no animosity in any way from my perspective.”
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