Having chalked up 192 first-class matches, including 22 international tests, two Rugby World Cup tournaments, 70 Super Rugby games, Pollock regards himself fortunate to have had a career spanning a decade.
It hasn't been without its fair share of controversy for the bloke who has nine Ranfurly Shield challenges under his belt.
"I've had some highs and a couple of lows in which, you know, I consider the lows to make you grow better."
No doubt Pollock's accomplished things he would never have done had he not pursued that path in rugby.
"I've been to places I'd never been to. You know, who gets to go to Buckingham Palace and things like that so I've been pretty fortunate, really."
He couldn't foresee another four-year cycle to the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan.
"I've had my hip replaced in July last year so that was a bit of struggle to get back to this [2015] World Cup.
"Trying to last for another World Cup was never going to happen which is why we decided it was a good time to finish on a high."
Wife Dane "has been like a rock to me", especially in the low times to keep him upbeat and focused.
"Between the two of us we kind of sat down and talked through what life was going to be like for me going forward."
Luck again plays a cameo role. He scored a position at Hastings Boys' High School, his last job in 2005 before he became a fulltime referee.
"The school has been fantastic to me this year in terms of allowing me the space to work fulltime here but also do my refereeing and go to the World Cup for seven and a half weeks," he says, saluting HBHS principal Rob Sturch for his understanding and support.
In a "normal year", he was away for 180 days from work but this year New Zealand Rugby allowed him the opportunity to skirt around "home" with the whistle during the Super Rugby season.
Games predominantly in New Zealand and along the east coast of Australia enabled him to leave school religiously on Thursdays or Fridays straight after final bell.
"In previous years I would have gone to South Africa for two to three-week stints and up to the UK a couple of times."
Pollock has an 11-year-old daughter, Elle, in Napier with an ex-partner and a 1-year-old son, Ryder, with Dane.
"She's very special and understands dad goes away for a bit," he says, relishing picking her up from school and taking her to sports and other extra-curricular activities this year.
Pollock has intentions of maintaining his involvement with rugby although he's unsure what form or shape that'll take when he discovers the details in a fortnight.
That could be doing off-field stuff, mentoring new guys coming through or in a capacity of fulltime coaching role.
"The game of rugby and refereeing has given me so much in the past 10 years that I've got a desire to share my knowledge and experience to help some amazing talent coming through," he says, having no doubts that talent will take New Zealand refereeing to the halcyon days.
He was in his mid-20s and teaching at New Plymouth Boys' High School as well as playing Taranaki rugby as halfback when his path crossed with officiating in the sport.
An ankle injury had kept him out for several weeks and during that phase a referee failed to show up for a school game and someone asked him to control the match.
Another teacher, Gordon Giddy, later urged him to attend a refs' meeting where Stewart Biessel ushered him to a coaching clinic at Strathford Rugby Club.
"I had never done a proper game but my nature is to be good at anything I do so I turned up there and there were six of them and five were premier referees," he recalls, indebted to Biessel for teaching him how to crawl, walk and run in refereeing.
By the time his ankle had recovered he played in mornings and controlled matches in the afternoon.
He had impressed so much that he was handed under-18 representative games by the end of that season.
"I had thought to myself rugby's going professional and Steve Walsh is coming through and for a young guy that would be a pretty cool thing to do."
He considers himself lucky to be one of very few young people refereeing in Taranaki in those days.
"Within one season of picking it up I was doing my first premier game."
Having finished playing at a young age also helped his career path, not to mention the feedback from spectators, players and coaches.
Add to that his people management skills as a schoolteacher and Pollock was tailor-made for rugby.
Officiating at the 2011 and 2015 Rugby World Cups were among his highs.
"2011 was really cool and then to referee in England was just amazing."
Making his tier-one test debut in the Italy v Argentina match in 2009 also was really special.
So were his Super Rugby and Six Nations debuts.
His parents, Paddy and Rob, of Wellington, became great supporters as his career became more defined.
