Owen Farrell: 'As an England player you never expect to be in this situation'
Owen Farrell admits England’s players are reeling from the nature of their Guinness Six Nations capitulation to France that has engulfed Twickenham in crisis.
England were overrun 53-10 in their biggest home defeat of all time and third heaviest loss at any venue, shattering the optimism that accompanied the start of Steve Borthwick’s reign as head coach.
Worryingly for Borthwick, his team were pulverised in contact as the gravest of a host of failings on a day that will rank among the worst in the nation’s 152-year rugby history.
Many fans streamed out of Twickenham long before the final whistle while others booed in reaction to seeing England register their eighth defeat in their last 16 Tests, a run that includes one draw.
“As an England player you never expect to be in this situation,” said Farrell, the red rose captain who replaced Henry Slade in the 46th minute.
“I don’t think you ever expect to lose like that at home as an England team. You don’t expect to lose like that anywhere as an England team.
“The result and the scoreline are hugely disappointing for us. It’s never nice. Most of the people in the changing room have been through it at some stage. Not normally with England – definitely not normally with England.
“I’m gutted. Everybody in the changing room is disappointed to lose in the fashion that we did.”
Farrell’s demotion to the bench to accommodate Marcus Smith at fly-half dominated the build-up to ‘Le Crunch’ with the swashbuckling Harlequins ringmaster picked with the aim of exposing France’s perceived mobility deficit in the forwards.
But power took centre stage as England were bullied in the contact area throughout, rendering the identity of their number 10 irrelevant as the irresistible World Cup hosts plundered seven tries, some of them works of art.
“When you end up behind on the scoreboard and you’re chasing, sometimes things turn out like that,” Farrell said.
“I’m not sure it’s a true reflection of our team but credit to France for the way they played, they were clinical. They got away early on and it was hard for us to get back into the game.”
For England it is a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire as having been scattered across Twickenham by the side rated number two in the world, they must travel to Dublin to meet rankings kingpins Ireland.
Another Six Nations consisting of just two wins beckons and Borthwick faces the task of picking his players up off the canvas for the toughest assignment in international rugby.
“The end goal is not any different for us because we’ve got to improve and we knew that before this game. We definitely know it after. We have to improve together,” Farrell said.
“We think we can be a lot better. This will make us have a good look at ourselves and I imagine that after this everybody is champing at the bit to get going again.”
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Looking forward to Canterbury's game. Great line up. Isaac Hutchinson at 15 has had a stunning first season for Canterbury. Another of other promising players introduced this year. 100 game Mitchell Drummond at halfback in great form last week.
Go to commentsIn order to have a fairer comparison you need to include the European Champions Cup game minutes played. Without them the SRP numbers are relatively overstated. I probably would also include Challenge Cup knock out stages minutes as well. For a number of clubs in the North these are the key games, not just the league, and the high profile players play in most of them if fit.
My other caveat on the piece, which was very interesting, is a feeling that the underlying assumption is that the international game has to be presented with "fresh" players and thus the next tier down has to accommodate to this. I would challenge this. The growth markets are club/provincial competitions and Test rugby needs to capped at a maximum of 10 or 11 games per team per season/year. Otherwise you don't have enough time to deliver a strong enough narrative in markets where rugby has many competitors and there is nowhere for franchise teams from emerging markets ( Spain , Georgia, Fiji, Chile etc.) to develop experience and depth - eventually being able to compete properly at RWC etc.
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