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Borthwick reveals how Farrell reacted to getting benched by England
By Liam Heagney
Steve Borthwick has explained how Owen Farrell reacted this week to his demotion from the England starting team to face France this Saturday at Twickenham. The head coach had named the Saracens player as the Test team’s skipper when he originally named his Guinness Six Nations squad in January and Farrell went on to lead the side in the February matches against Scotland, Italy and Wales.
The latter two of those appearances came at No10 as he was switched into that position from inside centre in place of the benched Marcus Smith after the pair had initially combined as the starting England 10/12 for the opening round loss versus Scotland.
Borthwick has now had another selection rethink, though, ahead of the round four clash versus France and it was at 1:30pm on Thursday when the RFU confirmed that Smith would wear the No10 jersey this weekend - with Farrell dropping to the replacements and acting as the No22 bench backup.
Asked at his follow-up media briefing about how Farrell had taken the news of his England demotion, Borthwick explained: “Owen has been brilliant, he always is. He trains brilliantly, he leads this team fantastically well whatever role he is put in and he has been incredible this week.
“I can’t praise Owen enough, not just for this week but every day since we started working together in this capacity. Owen has been just an incredible trainer, an incredible help with all the players around the squad - he cares so deeply about this team. Owen is a player who has incredible respect from everyone attached to the England rugby team.”
Borthwick clarified that Farrell will retake the England captaincy as soon as he is introduced from the bench on Saturday. “Ellis Genge is captaining the team for the first time and I’m delighted for him as he is a fantastic leader. We are blessed with brilliant leaders in this squad.
“Unfortunately, Courtney Lawes had to leave the squad this week due to injury, another brilliant leader, so Ellis will captain the team at the start of the game and then Owen will captain the team when he comes onto the pitch."
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Latest Comments
33, unlikely?
It’s actually an interesting question, how does his RL career impact you perception of his ‘rugby age’?
I’d imagine he’s fresher than a 26 yo rugby player, he’s fitting and done more k’s, but had less impacts (unsure of his injuries).
Anyway, your conclusion doesn’t really hit the mark. What you’ve not asked yourself is would he be better at 33, with 6 years under his belt, than 28/9, and only 2 years experience. If he really is considering it a major goal of course, he may just want an Olympic medal and leave etc.
Still, in relation to your topic, what I suspected would be his thinking is the ever increasing value in playing in Japan. Perhaps he’d try and give this first WC a go, trying to make it in the All Blacks, obviously playing Super Rugby, then he’d take a much bigger contract in Japan? Learn how to run around people with better accuracy and consistency (rofl), and then return to NZ as an improved player to Australia 2027, with the hope to fine tune further and make the most of his marketability in the bonanza that America 2031 is going to leave behind. 33 is still prime earning age and who knows what the MLR market is going to be like them, if teams have started to have major backers etc.
It’s all about the money afterall (yes, I wasn’t referring to his ability re USA31’)!
Go to commentsNo, just an overly zealous fan who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
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