England coach Steve Borthwick has heaped praise on the "excellent" Henry Pollock but joked he'll now have to listen to him brag about how easy playing on the wing is after his performance against Australia.
Pollock replaced the injured Immanuel Feyi-Waboso at halftime against the Wallabies and played on the wing, scoring two tries as England won 45-22.
Borthwick has previously said Pollock could cover the wing and his words were put into action on Sunday with great success.
However, the England coach joked the 21-year-old won't let anyone forget his heroics in a hurry.
"I say this in all the right ways, we now have to bear Henry Pollock saying playing on the wing is easy," Borthwick told his post-match news conference.
"We now have to bear Henry Pollock saying he can play anywhere on the pitch. We suggested the front-row, and he didn't want to do that.
"He was excellent and now we'll hear a lot about it.
"It's huge asset. We've shared many conversations about positional versatility. When you're making a six [forwards] two [backs] split on the bench or five-three split on the bench ... You look at your assistant coach and say: 'can he genuinely play there?' The answer is yes and he proved that today.
"That was one adaption. There were multiple other adaptions the players had to make in the game we had a number of knocks and bangs and to handle that the way the guys did ... Was a real sign of growth."
Borthwick said it was too early to say how severe Feyi-Waboso's ankle injury is, but he was hopeful Seb Atkinson, who limped off in the second half with a hip problem, would not need long to recover.
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Maro Itoje makes impassioned defence of Borthwick
England captain Maro Itoje made a point of interjecting during the post-match news conference to throw his support behind Borthwick after a report in The Times this week which claimed players were unhappy with how they were being treated by Borthwick in the summer.
Prior to the game, Itoje and Jamie George denied any rift between senior players and the coach, and the captain doubled down after the win over Australia.
"I think from a players point of view we have full support in Steve," Itoje said.
"I've had the privilege of Steve being my coach since 2016 ... And that's not the man I recognise. The article doesn't represent the environment I recognise. I think if you speak to players over his coaching career they will say a different story.
"Often too much criticism is put on the coach. No matter how well Steve coaches us, we as players are the ones on the field. We as players are the ones who have to perform. There's been times we haven't quite done that which has put a bit of pressure on him.
"He's a world class coach and we're lucky to have him."