On the flip side was how Pollock admittedly approached the game.
"I probably went in a little naive because I was still pretty young in terms of a test referee and probably treated the game a bit like a Super Rugby game."
He "kind of missed the boat" on a game that had a lot more riding on it.
"When you say it out loud it seems pretty logical but when you get caught up in the moment it didn't occur to me," Pollock reflects, no doubt becoming much wiser for it not long after the final whistle that in tests teams didn't care how they won a game as long as they emerged victors.
He vividly recalls walking off Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane, on June 22, and remarking to assistant referee Craig Joubert that he was "pretty happy with how that went".
"Within an hour the English media and Warren Gatland were pretty unhappy with how things had gone," he says of the game the Lions won 23-21 before going on to clinch that series 2-1.
For what it's worth now Pollock is man enough to accept some decisions weren't correct and the repercussions indelibly taken in his stride.
"They weren't the best decisions and that had a pretty flow-on effect. I got attacked pretty heavily in the media," he says. It was his maiden media flogging.
Needless to say, life wasn't easy the ensuing fortnight as assistant ref with the impending Lions' tests in Melbourne and Sydney.
"It was pretty hard being involved in that environment when you're still getting a lot of grief from the media."
The effect of that criticism on Pollock's head space became apparent when he returned home to control games in the last round of Super Rugby before the playoffs.
"I probably had my worst game of my career in the last round-robin game and, rightly so, I got dropped from the playoffs."
However, a circumspect Pollock says while it was a christening of sorts it also opened avenues for him to seek help.
Enter sport psychologist Gilbert Enoka who didn't spend much time with him as such but chucked enough "pearls of wisdom" his way for him to drag himself out of the mind swamp over two years.
"I got back to the point where I felt this year was the best I've ever refereed."
He sees the irony of stepping down at a time when he's rattled the pea with aplomb.
But while he feels he's capable of soldiering on for another couple of years internationally, he selflessly feels compelled not to occupy the window of opportunity for those who are aspiring to make the next four-year cycle to the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan.
"They were in a position this year where they needed 12 refs for the World Cup and they only had 12 to pick from because no one else outside that dozen had done a tier-one test so they need to go to 2019 with a lot more depth than what they've got.
"Look, it'll get to a point where I'll go 'it was amazing and that not too many people get to do Lions' tests' so, yes, I'm immensely proud to have had the opportunity to have done it."
Overall, Pollock is still pretty happy with how his day went at the office that turbulent day.
"Like I said, there are one or two decisions I'd love to take back because the whole thing would have been different but that's footy."
