How Saints are working to unearth the next Pollock

Saints Ascending: Life in Northampton Saints' Rugby Academy

From 12:00 BST on 21 May

For years, 18-year-old Jack Lawrence has been dreaming of becoming a professional rugby player.

He's one of many in Northampton Saints' academy desperate for a first-team contract this season.

This year he finds out if he makes the cut.

"I look at the pictures of the big names at Saints and wonder if one day it could be me," he admitted.

"It's been my boyhood dream, it would be very special."

Since early February, BBC Look East have been filming behind the scenes with Saints' Under-18 academy.

The defending Premiership champions pride themselves on producing young, local talent.

They have a mandate to provide in excess of 50% homegrown players in the senior Saints squad, every year.

This season, 32 out of 61 first-team players come from the academy, including England stars Alex Mitchell, George Furbank, Fraser Dingwall, Tommy Freeman and of course, the biggest young star in the game, Henry Pollock.

They are now the players who have helped propel Saints to a European Champions Cup final against Bordeaux Begles on Saturday, 24 May.

"I cannot recommend the academy highly enough," said flanker Pollock, 20, who won his first England cap in March and has been called up for this summer's British and Irish Lions tour to Australia.

"You put your trust in the coaches that you're ready for the next step. That's what is so good about it, they put you in regardless of age and how old others think you are.

"The coaches give you the confidence to go out on the pitch and show yourself, giving you the ability to take the next step and adapting to that next level.

"It's special here, very special."

In this year's academy, there are around 65 players battling for a contract, although some are 17 and have another year to play.

"It's something I've dreamed about since I picked up a rugby ball," said lock Ollie Hull.

"It's quite stressful, you have to watch your nutrition, you have to look back at the games to make sure you're doing everything you can do get a contract."

Every Premiership rugby team is given a region to recruit and develop players.

Northampton's academy identifies, recruits and develops the most talented young players from several different local regions: the Northampton & District Alliance and East Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Suffolk and north east Essex, plus Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire and Peterborough.

They train once a week in Bedford with matches at weekends.

"The big thing we pride ourselves in is the relationships with our clubs and schools and the game across our region," said Max Dominy, one of the academy coaches.

"We have club and school coaches getting in touch saying 'we have a player we think you should take a look at'.

"We value their opinion. We go out and about watching games."

Once selected, the boys become part of a professional academy set-up.

"You've got to know when to flick a switch, when to be on, when to be off," said head coach Charlie Reed.

"In academy rugby environments you hit a real high level of intensity, it then drops, and then it climbs and you are expected to go to the high level again the next day.

"And you have to do that repeatedly for quite a long period of your life."

The players are coached in the same way as the first team.

"It's about giving them a safe space to participate," said Dominy.

"We want them to play and feel free to express themselves and want to get better.

"We talk about making good mistakes. If they drop a ball, it doesn't matter because they're trying to do the right thing.

"Eventually, they will catch it and it will make them a better player. We make it a safe space for them to fail."

The priority though is their education.

"It's the most important thing," said Mark Hopley, the head of the Saints academy.

"We want to make sure they are focusing on that, so we facilitate a rugby programme alongside that. We work with their schools and clubs, but I guess between 14 and 18, it's a four-year job interview really."

Lawrence has been part of the academy set-up for a few years.

His first love was football until a friend asked if he wanted to join his local rugby union club in Cambridgeshire. He was instantly hooked.

"I loved the physicality," he admitted.

His parents, Mark and Karen, have driven him to matches all around the country.

Soon, however, the region's top public schools were interested in him joining.

"I'm an electrician, and my wife is a hairdresser, so we are not the richest in the world," said Mark.

"One of the first things we said in the meetings with these schools was that we couldn't afford to send Jack, but they said don't worry about the finances. They told us they wanted to work with Jack, his talent and develop him as a person.

"When we took him for his first day at St Joseph's in Suffolk, he walked away with his suitcase and that was a fairly emotional day to be honest.

"I thought I would be the one supporting my wife from crying, but I was the one who broke down in tears actually."

Rugby union is often criticised for being too reliant on the country's top public schools.

"That is the perception," admitted Hopley.

"Within our programme at GCSE year, there are high potential boys from state schools and there is movement. There are some independent schools who go after those boys and offer them scholarships.

"Ultimately it's about what's right for their education. But they do get life-changing experiences as a result.

"But we do have very good state schools too. Northampton School for Boys this year have more England Under-18 players in their squad than any other school. We are lucky to have them as a key partner."

This year, the Saints Under-18s won the Premiership Academy title. They beat last year's winners Bath 31-14 in the final at Kingsholm.

A few weeks later, the senior coaching group at Saints met to discuss who they should sign and who should be released.

"We are looking for character and work ethic over everything," said Hopley.

"Sometimes it's position specific, we look at physical athletic potential but it's never one thing. But I can never coach how hard a young man is willing to work."

Head coach Reed added: "I want authenticity, self-awareness.

"Do they want to get better through their actions, to drive their own development? If they have these traits at a young age, they will have them at an older one too."

Hopley admits that selecting players is a real challenge and they can make mistakes.

"We've kept players too long and probably been too nice and stopped them getting opportunity elsewhere and we won't do that again," he said.

"The responsibility we have is to those players who don't get a contract. Have we added to their lives, developed them as people, so when they do go forward to their different environments, are they a better person?

"We have to be honest, but telling them bad news isn't easy to take. When it comes to the crunch, it's the worst part of the job."

Saints have handed seven players first-team academy contracts for the 2025-26 season.

At their final home game of the season, the chosen players and their families were invited to Franklin's Gardens for the signing of contracts.

The new players were unveiled to the crowd and given a framed signed jersey with their name embossed on the back.

Jack Lawrence looked in shock. His parents beamed with pride.

"This is something I wanted for a while," said Jack. "I have wanted this so much, my mum and dad too, it means so much to them as well."

Watch: Saints Ascending - Behind the scenes with Northampton Saints Academy on BBC iPlayer