Northampton

Henry Pollock is set to demand a substantial increase on his current Northampton contract to stay at Franklin’s Gardens, with agent Eddie Hearn suggesting annual earnings of £1m are the going rate for the 21-year-old star.

“He’s certainly a seven-figure player,” said Hearn, who met with Pollock on his yacht off Monaco last month, to the Daily Telegraph., external

“The way rugby’s going and what Pollock is doing, his value over the next couple of years will skyrocket, and I think the value of rugby will.”

Pollock’s current deal with Saints, signed in December 2024 and set to expire in summer 2027, is thought to be worth £150,000 a year.

Since agreeing those terms, the back row has made his England debut, toured with the British and Irish Lions and was a key part of the Saints side that reached the Champions Cup final last year and won the Prem title in June.

His exuberant on-pitch persona, relishing confrontation and celebrating tries with rehearsed routines, has attracted attention and a legion of young fans.

Northampton’s ability to match Pollock’s wage demands may be hampered by a league-wide £6.4m salary cap and their own generation of young stars.

Each team can have one marquee player whose pay is exempt from counting towards the cap. Fly-half Fin Smith is thought to currently occupy that place on the Saints’ payroll, while Tommy Freeman, who has reportedly signed a lucrative new extension,, external and scrum-half Alex Mitchell could also make claims to it.

Northampton failed to reach agreement with club captain George Furbank on a new deal last season, allowing the England full-back to leave for Harlequins as they sought to make space under the salary ceiling to improve the terms of young stars like Pollock.

The latest salary cap report, external – which detailed payroll from the 2024-25 season – showed Saints did not pay up to the £6.4m limit, with salary spending higher at Bath, Leicester, Sale, Harlequins and Saracens.

It also showed Pollock’s reported earnings being below average for both his position, with the average back row earning a mean of £192,000, and Test experience, with players between 11 and 20 caps around £224,000.

While Bath fly-half Finn Russell, another of Hearn’s clients, is believed to be the league’s highest earner on a deal worth about £1m a year, few clubs have the resources or space in their salary structure to accommodate such a highly paid figurehead.

Newcastle Red Bulls, recently taken over by the Austrian energy drink giant, are one of the exceptions.

Bristol, who place a large emphasis on the marketability of their players, external and have signed Louis Rees-Zammit, Ellie Kildunne and Ilona Maher over the past couple of seasons, could be another.

Champions Northampton will host Newcastle Red Bulls on the opening day of the 2026-27 Prem rugby season.

Saints beat Exeter to lift the trophy for the second time in three seasons in June and start the new campaign at home on Friday, 25 September.

The Chiefs are also at home for their first game, with Gloucester set to visit Sandy Park on the Saturday.

Elsewhere across the opening weekend, Harlequins are at home to Bath on Friday, Sale host Bristol on Saturday evening and Leicester play Saracens in the only match on Sunday.

The 2026-27 Prem final will be held on Saturday, 19 June 2027 at the Allianz Stadium, Twickenham, with the season to take a series of breaks around international fixtures.

After five rounds in six weeks through September and October, there will be a four-week Prem break through November for the autumn matches of the Nations Championship.

With European competition beginning in December there are four Prem rounds across six weeks until January, before a 10-week league pause again in February and March for the Six Nations.

The new season also begins with promotion and relegation officially scrapped from the division.

While no club has been relegated from the Prem or promoted up from the Champ since Saracens in 2020 and 2021, this has now been formalised as part of a series of changes to English rugby voted through in February, as the league moves towards a franchise-style model.

Northampton and Bath will compete for points in the same tough Champions Cup pool next season, having been drawn alongside the Pretoria-based Bulls and Top 14 runners-up Montpellier.

The Bulls lost in the United Rugby Championship (URC) final against Leinster in June, while Montpellier were also one match from glory, beaten by Toulouse in France’s showpiece league competition.

Stade Francais, who reached the Top 14 semi-finals, and Cardiff – the top-ranked Welsh side in the URC – complete a competitive Pool Four.

Elsewhere, Bristol will face Gloucester and Munster in Pool Three, as well as being reunited with defending champions Bordeaux-Begles.

The French superpower took a narrow victory at Ashton Gate when the teams met at the same stage in January.

Leinster will take on Leicester, Sale and Glasgow in Pool One, while Toulouse – who clinched a fourth successive French title last weekend – will provide opposition for Saracens, Exeter and Connacht in Pool Two.

In the second-tier Challenge Cup, Harlequins have been drawn alongside three-time Champions Cup winners Toulon, along with Edinburgh and Ospreys.

Newcastle are in Pool Two with Scarlets, Benetton and Sharks.

Ulster have Bayonne and Perpignan as their French opposition in Pool Three, as well as Dragons.

The fixture list, with potentially crucial home advantage, will be announced later this month.

Northampton director of rugby Phil Dowson told BBC Sport:

“We were outstanding throughout the season, it’s nice now to be able to put a full stop on it with a big tin cup and say ‘we were the best side in the league’.

“I think it looked like a final.

“That was a proper final where it was nip and tuck, there were opportunities, we got held up, they got held up.

“We maybe weren’t as clinical as we’d have liked to have been, and that can certainly change the pressure.

“But I thought at 60 minutes to go we felt in a good space and the messages that were coming back to the coaching group from how the players were talking to each other and connecting was very positive.

“You bring on people like Callum Chick and Fraser Dingwall, who have been there before, and the last 20 minuets we looked very strong.”

Departing Northampton captain George Furbank told BBC Sport:

“I said to the boys I don’t really know how to feel after the final whistle.

“It was a mix of relief, happiness, sadness, all merged into one.

“It was a different feeling to the last time we won it – I think we’re going to have a good few days to celebrate and it’ll all sink in.

Exeter director of rugby Rob Baxter told BBC Sport:

“The first thing you have to do in a final is congratulate the opposition because otherwise when you just talk about yourself – it just feels like you’re critiquing and criticising yourself, and thinking these are the things we could have done.

“We had them deep into the game, under pressure, scores behind, they’ve kind of stuck with what they do.

“I’ll look back and I’ll go ‘we must have been pretty good because we forced two tries out of kicks through’, one where for whatever reason we don’t get our comms quite right and we actually just bump the ball out of our own hands into their hands for one try, and then the last try where they slide it through and it’s almost on a pinpoint.

“You look and go ‘well, we forced Northampton to score 12 points with two relatively speculative kicks through, that’s a pretty pretty good performance from us’.”

Northampton: Furbank (c); Freeman, Litchfield, Hutchinson, Hendy; Smith, McParland; Iyogun, Langdon, Millar Mills; Coles, Prowse, Kemeny, Pearson, Pollock.

Replacements: Wright, Fischetti, Green, Van der Mescht, Lockett, Chick, Mitchell, Dingwall.

Yellow card: Kemeny (51)

Exeter: Woodburn; Feyi-Waboso, Slade, Ikitau, Ridl; Skinner, Varney; Sio, Norey, Iosefa-Scott; Jenkins (c), Zambonin, Hooper, Roots, Fisilau.

Replacements: Dweba, Burger, Tchumbadze, Tshiunza, Vintcent, James, Cairns, Haydon-Wood.

Yellow card: Jenkins (57)

Referee: Matthew Carley.

Northampton: Furbank, Freeman, Litchfield, Hutchinson, Hendy, Smith, McParland; Iyogun, Smith, Millar Mills, Coles, Prowse, Kemeny, Pollock, Chick

Replacements: Walker, Fischetti, Green, Van Der Mescht, Pearson, Graham, Mitchell, Dingwall

Bristol: Lane, Rees-Zammit, Janse van Rensburg, Williams, Ravouvou, Jordan, Randall; Genge, Thacker, Kloska, Dun, Batley, Owen, Harding (c), Grondona

Replacements: Gwilliam, Woolmore, Lahiff, Taylor, Ivanishvili, Marmion, Moroni, Heward

Referee: Luke Pearce