‘We’re always going to look after our mates’ – England star issues warning ahead of Bordeaux clash
'We’re always going to look after our mates' - England star issues warning ahead of Bordeaux clash
England star Alex Coles has warned Northampton players will “look after” any of their team subjected to unwarranted treatment in Sunday’s Investec Champions Cup final rerun.
Saints travel to France in what they have dubbed the “lion’s den” to face Bordeaux for the first time since losing the showpiece in May last year.
The game in Cardiff was widely remembered for the targeting of Henry Pollock after the final whistle.
The 20-year-old flanker was grabbed in the throat by prop Jefferson Poirot, who was later handed a two-week ban for “an act of foul play that warranted a red card”.
Matthieu Jalibert joined the melee, angrily claiming Saints had branded UBB a “club of mercenaries who were here for the money” – an allegation Northampton boss Phil Dowson rejected out of hand.
Later, both in the changing room and during a subsequent open-top bus parade, Tevita Tatafu taunted English rugby’s most-talked-about player, mimicking his “pulse-check” celebration and holding up a sign that read “Pollock, calm down”.
Coles, who scored both Saints’ tries that thunderous afternoon inside the Principality Stadium, said: “Emotions are always going to run high after a final. All I’ll say is that we are always going to stand up for our mate.
“I never want to see Pollock in a situation where he feels he’s been unfairly treated. We’re always going to look after our mates.”
“Everyone hates Henry Pollock”
Saints are embracing the hostility they know will hit them when they enter the sold-out 34,000-seat Stade Chaban-Delmas.
“Everyone hates Henry Pollock – that’s going to create an exciting atmosphere,” Dowson told BBC Radio Northampton this week. “We are looking forward to it, and we want to relish it. We won’t care when they boo Pollock, and neither will he.
“He likes those environments. I think he likes to measure himself in the lion’s den, and that will certainly be what’s welcoming us this weekend.”
Since last season’s final, Pollock has played for the British and Irish Lions and added four England caps to the first he won, also in Cardiff, on the final day of the 2025 Six Nations.
“He’s still very much the same guy,” said Coles. “He’s still got that sort of childish excitement about him. He’s loud, he’s quite brash. It’s not tempered down.
“But it’s good. He has brought a little bit more maturity as he’s grown into himself as a rugby player and grown into his role in the team.
“The only change would be he’s driving some of the more tactical and technical stuff a little bit more; driving some of the stuff around our breakdown and things like that.
“In terms of just that pure energy, it’s been pretty consistent.”
If any club can thrive amid the hostility of Chaban-Delmas, it should be Saints. A fortnight ago, they went to Bath and racked up 41 points on a pitch where the champions of England were unbeaten since October 2024.
Before that, they achieved the most notable result in last season’s Champions Cup by taking down favourites Leinster at the Aviva to add to previous scalps taken in Limerick and Pretoria.
“We’ve got that history of big away performances,” said Coles. “That doesn’t mean it’s just going to happen, but we have a belief that we can do it.”
The difference between this season and last is that Saints are delivering on all fronts. When they went to Dublin for that semi-final, they were also-rans in the Prem; now they are top dogs.
Coles claims inside the squad, little has changed.
“Last season, despite things not going well in the Prem, we had a real belief that on our day we could be a really, really dangerous side.
“We still have that underlying confidence that if we put our game on the pitch team will struggle to deal with it. We’re slowly starting to get everything to click.
“Some of the fluidity with which we attacked against Quins at the weekend is testament to the fact we’ve had a good few weeks together as a group since people came back from the autumn [internationals].
“There’s real competition for places, and the combination of that coherence we’re building in training and real competition for places is serving us well.”
The emergence of Alex Coles
For all the attention garnered by Pollock, nobody in English rugby is in better nick than Coles, now Maro Itoje’s regular second row partner in the national team.
“It’s funny,” said the 26-year-old. “You score a few tries, and suddenly people start to mention you.
“I feel I’ve managed to improve a lot in the mental side of the game and how I approach things; been more consistent in the way I perform. But I’d like to think I’ve still got a bit more growth in me.”
Coles will doubtless add to his 14 caps when the Six Nations gets underway next month, always assuming he stays clear of injury. Just don’t expect him to lose focus on the day job before England go into camp.
His priority is securing home advantage for Saints in the round of 16, and even maximum points after two rounds does not guarantee that. Any slip-up, against either Bordeaux or Scarlets, at the Gardens on Sunday week, could let in Bristol Bears.
That is a big part of the reason Coles refuses to get caught up in the noise surrounding this weekend’s clash.
“Everyone’s trying to push the [revenge] narrative,” he said. “But I wouldn’t say there’s much of that coming from us.
“In rugby, you have to move on as much as possible when things go wrong. We were pretty gutted to lose the final to them, but they were the better team on the day.
“The past does obviously factor in a little bit this weekend, but it’s really not something we’ve spoken about loads. They are a top-quality outfit, and we want to test ourselves against the best.”