Henry Pollock has revealed his ploy to avoid the embarrassment of losing the famous British and Irish Lions mascot.
The tradition with the famous touring team is that the youngest player in the squad must look after the stuffed Lion, aptly named ‘BIL’.
Looking after BIL
While it seems like an easy enough task, it is made more difficult as wherever the team goes, so does BIL.
Additionally, squad members are renowned for making life difficult for the youngest player by hiding the stuffed Lion during training sessions or stealing it.
BIL is the newest mascot, having replaced ‘Leo’ in 2013, who was in place for almost two decades.
This tradition started all the way back in 1950 with the most recent carers of the mascot being Leigh Halfpenny (2009), Stuart Hogg (2013), Maro Itoje (2017) and Louis Rees-Zammit (2021).
Pollock now takes over the caring duties from Rees-Zammit and has revealed his plans to avoid the blunder of losing BIL and spending too much time searching for him, thanks to mischievous teammates.
Former Lions and Wales centre Tom Shanklin raised the topic on the Stick to Rugby podcast.
“What about BIL, the Lion, you’ve got to look after him as well, bit of responsibility that is?” he said.
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Pollock’s ploy
Pollock responded: “I know, I feel kind of bad for him.
“I was just thinking about just air tagging him in case he gets lost.
“Putting it in and sewing it back up, and then you can never lose him.”
Another former Lion, Lawrence Dallaglio, suggested that he get some practice before departing to Australia.
“I think your mum might need to buy you a little cuddly toy just so you get a bit of practice for a few months before you go on the trip,” he quipped.
Meanwhile, ex-Wales forward Scott Quinnell joked that the pressure of looking after the mascot was so severe that it led to former Gloucester and Lions winger Rees-Zammit leaving rugby.
“There’s a lot of pressure with BIL, though,” he said.
“Louis Rees-Zammit found it so stressful that he went to the NFL, that’s how stressful he found it.”
Pollock added: “Hopefully, it won’t be that bad. I’m excited for it.”
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