Northampton Saints boss Phil Dawson praised Henry Pollock’s big-match temperament after England’s backline fired twice in their Champions League replay with Bordeaux.
Premier League leaders Saints, who were beaten by the French club in last season’s final, were in trouble again as they lost 50-28 in Sunday’s pool clash.
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Although Pollock is only in his second full season as a senior player, he has already earned a love-hate relationship among fans in France.
“For someone of his age to be able to handle this kind of pressure from a really partisan French crowd is pretty impressive,” Dawson told BBC Radio Northampton.
“It says a lot about him and the team that supports him and what we want to be, playing in these big pots and enjoying it.
“No one boos a trash player, no one boos someone they don’t really respect. He captures the imagination and the media really drives that, which is great, but you also have to believe in his ability to play the game.”
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Northampton have had to make two changes ahead of the game, with England half Finn Smith ruled out with a calf injury – Anthony Bello has taken his place despite suffering a serious oral injury against Harlequins last weekend – and James Lahm ruled out with a hamstring problem.
They also committed fouls on prop Danilo Fischetti and center Rory Hutchinson in the first half and could not recover from a 24-7 deficit at the break despite trying four of their own – two of which came from Pollock, who was also booed in his first pool game in Pau.
“We spent 20 minutes in the first half with only 14 players left, which made it very, very difficult, especially given the quality they had,” Dawson said.
“It’s been a tough start and there’s obviously some pressure from set-pieces. But we want to be at the top and we want to be challenged by these teams because that’s where we learn the most and we’ll benefit a lot from that.”
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Northampton had previously won five games in all competitions but conceded eight times, including hat-tricks from Salesi Rayasi and Cameron Waukee.
However, they secured a spot in the knockout stages of the competition thanks to the points gained in Bordeaux.
“It’s hard to draw immediate conclusions other than to say we’re not very good in certain areas and against really good teams, that’s what happens (sometimes).
“That [Fischetti sin-binning] Obviously it gave them a foothold but it wasn’t necessarily the whole game, there were a lot of times where they fought back through turnovers and bits and pieces like that – I don’t think that’s the whole story, obviously it was disappointing in the first 10-15 minutes – but credit to the scrum for correcting that and giving us a foothold on set pieces,” Dawson added.
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Northampton are third in Group Four and close out the Champions League group stage on Sunday (15:15 GMT) when they host Skalay, who have lost all three of their games so far.
Saints still have a chance of finishing second, which would give them a home tie in the last 16.