Paul Gustard: Owen Farrell will be Top 14 'signing of the season'

Stade Francais defence coach Paul Gustard believes his new Paris neighbour Owen Farrell will “probably be the signing of the season” in the Top 14 in 2024/25.

Farrell, 32, has joined Stade’s city rivals Racing 92, where he will be coached by Stuart Lancaster, another of the French capital’s growing enclave of Englishmen.

Gustard has known Farrell for half the England international’s life, having worked with him at Saracens and England, and the former Leicester, London Irish and Saracens flanker has no doubt the Wiganer will take the Top 14 by storm.

“I don’t have to sit here and eulogise about Owen Farrell because, hopefully, enough people are going to do it. Of all the players I have coached, for me Owen is probably the most complete in terms of his dedication, his professionalism," said Gustard.

“From a young age, it was like take your breath away kind of stuff in terms of how driven he was, how much he wanted to improve and how much he listened, and on top of that how much he performed.

“He is incredibly consistent: an elite 8,9, 10/10 player every week, he rarely has a poor game. I am staggered at the criticism he has ever received, it is unfathomable to me, he’s just an absolute world-class player and he could well be the signing of the season.”

As well as his control on the pitch, Gustard reckons the vast experience Farrell has gained from 112 England caps will make him an important ally to Lancaster in the dressing room as Racing look to improve on last season’s sixth-place finish, and semi-final qualifier exit, in the former England coach’s first season in charge.

“He could be the guy who could help be a voice – or the extension of what Stuart wants to see and deliver – but his personal standards are so high, and his personal determination to succeed in anything he does is so high.

“People see somebody who is England’s record points scorer, has over 100 caps for his country, he’s won five or six Premiership titles, three European titles - his record is just staggering - Grand Slams, Six Nations, Lions tour tours etcetera, etcetera.

“If you see him roll up his sleeves, which he does; if you see him doing extras for 45 minutes after training, which he does; if you see him coming in on his day off for extras, which he does; if you see him watching footage of the next opponent, which he does, it is very hard not to feel impressed by that as another player and think this is what I need to do to be at that level.

“He doesn’t do it because he is looking for everyone to say, look at me, he is doing it because he has done it all his life to get the best out of himself and to improve himself.

“I have known Owen since he was a little boy – I say little boy, he was still 6 foot – and I am mates with his dad. I remember watching rugby league with his dad and Owen is there with his Paul Weller haircut, and then watching him play with his dad in a second team game, and all the rest of it.

“With England, he was one of our defensive leaders, so I have known him for so long now and I have got nothing but respect for him and a lot of love for him really he is a good man and a good human being and I hope it goes well for him. He could well be the signing of the season – unfortunately!”

Whilst looking out for Farrell on a neighbourly basis, Gustard’s main focus is maintaining Stade’s superb defensive record whilst head coach Karim Ghezal and attack/kicking coach Morgan Parra finds a way of improving the team’s blunt attack.

Defence was the key reason – almost the only reason – Stade finished second in the table before missing out on the final after a semi-final defeat to Stade Francais.

However, there was a drop-off towards the end of the campaign, perhaps as a result of entertainment hungry Stade fans and their expectation that it is not just where you end up in the table, it is about how you get there, too.

“We conceded 49 tries (in the regular season) – almost 50% of them in the last six games, of which we had a red card, we went down to 13 men in some games, and we were cut by two teams which had never happened since I’d been here," Gustard pointed out.

Ten of those 49 tries were scored from mauls, so preventing the opposition easy entries into the 22 – with discipline in and around halfway crucial to that – is one of the work-ons identified by Gustard, who only has a four-week window to tweak things before another marathon Top 14 campaign gets going, away to their semi-final conquerors, Bordeaux-Begles, on September 7.

With Les Bleus playmaker Louis Carbonel signed up and Portuguese wing sensation Raffaele Storti back on board full time after a loan spell at Béziers, Stade have the weapons in their armoury to honour the vision of Max Guazzini and be a galvanised attacking force.

But given his coaching specialism, it comes as no surprise that Gustard is still a firm believer that defence wins your Championships.

“Looking across the data of all the competitions, above all else defence gets you to the top," he said.

“In the Top 14, the six teams in the top six all had defences ranked first to sixth. We conceded the fewest tries and the fewest points.

“For us, we need to score more points but maintain a top three/four defence.

“In my first professional coaching role I was at Saracens and we were successful and we won.

“Ultimately no one remembers second, third or fourth, unless you getting over the line with a title.

“Next season again, like everyone else, we are chasing Toulouse.”

PARIS, FRANCE - JANUARY 14: Paul Gustard, Defence Coach of Stade Francais Paris looks on prior to the EPCR Challenge Cup Pool B match between Stade Francais Paris and Emirates Lions at Stade Jean Bouin on January 14, 2023 in Paris, France. (Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

Gustard is in his fourth year on the continent having arrived from Italy, where he spent the 2021/22 season with Benetton following his abrupt exit as Head of Rugby at Harlequins.

The 48-year-old Geordie is enjoying life in Paris with his wife and three kids and that was one of the reasons why he turned down the top job at Lyon, which has gone unreported elsewhere.

“In terms of my approach to rugby and life, it has definitely changed a bit," he said, looking very much as ease sitting at home in his family's Parisian apartment in a vest top, shorts and reversed baseball cap.

“The plan was always to go abroad at some stage, it just happened a couple of years earlier than I anticipated.

“Because we didn’t know anyone in Paris, it was just us, it has given us an opportunity to grow as a family, to deepen our relationships

“We are so much more invested in each other because I am not chasing things, we are not on the road as much, or doing the things I was doing before. My ambition probably changed  a lot during Covid as well because there was a real fear, in the Premiership in particular, and some other leagues as well, that the league would go under, another bout of Covid and it was gone.

“That made me start looking to make sure that, financially, I could provide for family and I was looking at Japan initially but there wasn’t an opportunity for the role I was looking for so I ended up taking something slightly different.

"Super Rugby stuff was enticing as a rugby coach looking to develop – a lot has been said about Ronan (O’Gara) and his time with the Crusaders, and I actually did coach the Rebels a while ago, for two to three weeks, when I was with England and it was a great experience and everything else.

"But I think being away and understanding the impact of Covid and seeing some friends parents pass away, and all that kind of stuff, it kind of felt like if we are a day away in terms of travel and something happened to our parents and we couldn’t get back, we’d regret it. So we wanted to stay in Europe and that’s where we have ended up.”

Gustard’s experience at Harlequins, where certain players were rumoured to be behind his exit, hasn’t put him off leading a coaching group in the future; he always backs himself to deliver. However, he will seek a more thorough understanding of the role required of him before taking on his next head coach job.

“I have been offered quite a lot of head coach roles over the last three years or so. I was offered the Lyon job, to be head coach there, just before the semi-final. Lyon is a good city to live in but, at the moment, I am pretty happy in Paris, my wife is happy in Paris, the kids are happy in Paris.

“One thing I have learnt is making sure I am connected to the right people at the club I am going to if I move on, and also making sure I am very clear about what the vision of the club is and also what the role is in its entirety. Looking back, I’ve had to do things I don’t think I should have to do, there were aspects where the clarity of the roles could have been better.

“In my last season at Harlequins I picked the wrong fight with the CEO, we didn’t have a good relationship, we weren’t connected. They offered me a two-year extension to my contract but I never signed it, and this was during the middle of Covid.

“It (Harlequins) wasn’t through a lack of effort or work, I am obviously like every human, I make mistakes and I get things wrong. Afterwards, things can always be said when you are one voice and you choose not to say anything.

“There will always be some you don’t please, and that goes both ways. But I enjoyed it, I enjoyed the challenge and I look back at the work I did at Harlequins positively.

“I still speak to a lot of the people there now, I’ve had messages from players – even in the last few weeks – asking for help and advice and stuff – and Joe Marchant played there and he signs for the club (Stade).”

Gustard is proud of his track record with Saracens, England, Harlequins, Benetton and now Stade.

“Wherever I have gone, whichever club I have been at, when I have gone into a coaching role the group has improved.

“I am one of the reasons, obviously not the only reason by any stretch because, fundamentally, the players are the main reason.

“But the group at Saracens improved when I became a coach, and England improved when I started coaching along with the rest of the coaches. We went from getting knocked out of the 2015 World Cup group stages, to equalling the world record for number of wins, a Grand Slam, Six Nations, a first series win in Australia - in the first year in the Six Nations we only conceded four tries - so we saw an improvement.

“I went to Harlequins and had one full year where we finished fifth, on the same points as fourth – and we were 11th the year before I joined – and then we finished sixth. The next year I left in the middle of the year and they finished fourth and won the Premiership.

“Then I went to Benetton, they hadn’t won a game the season before I joined, and the next year we are sitting in the top 6 around Christmas time and then, because we were so effective that year, we lost 27 players to international duty.

“Stade Francais were 11th before I joined and the we finished fourth and then second, so I feel like I am still performing, and the feedback I get from people I work with is always positive.

"I am still wearing shorts and t shirt for work, I am really enjoying the passion for rugby here in France, it is just incredible, and financially it is very good as well. All round it is a very good package.”

That is something that Stade also aspire to be.