The 'Oh, wow' Saracens reaction to Ben Earl getting England recall
Saracens have explained the very different Ben Earl that will head into England camp next week compared to the back-rower last capped by his country in March 2021. The 25-year-old made a Test rugby debut in early 2020 and went on to feature in 13 successive matches under Eddie Jones as a used replacement who was given 245 minutes of action.
His return to Saracens from a year-long loan spell at Bristol while the London club was in the Championship, coincided with his England squad axing by Jones. However, 22 months on from his last Test appearance, Earl will now head into next week’s five-day Pennyhill Park gathering under new boss Steve Borthwick a very different entity.
So insisted Saracens head coach Joe Shaw when asked by RugbyPass to outline the difference between Earl joining the England class of 2023 compared to when he fell out of favour in 2021. “Oh, wow,” began Shaw. “Last year he got Premiership player of the year, didn’t he? His performances for us were exceptional.
“One thing I have got to say about Ben - for a young lad because he is a young lad - is when you get an accolade like that or you have had a season like that, it’s probably easy to take your foot off the pedal a little bit but he hasn’t done that.
“He turned up to pre-season in incredible shape so he was so far down his pre-season (before it even began). He is another one who is never satisfied with his game, he wants to get better and he looks like he is enjoying himself.
“That is the other thing about playing in our team, the positions he has managed to put himself into, he has had huge, huge impacts consistently this season but he is always looking to get better and I am sure when he gets into camp he will talk to Steve and find out what is needed to play for England.”
Having made a dozen Gallagher Premiership appearances this season, Earl is currently leading the turnovers won chart with 21, one ahead of Harlequins’ Will Evans and four clear of Leicester’s Tommy Reffell. His 116 tackles have him listed as the league’s ninth-busiest tackler. He is also eighth on the defenders beaten list with 28 and joint-eighth in the clean breaks category with twelve.
“Obviously, there has been a change with the coaching staff for England and you want your boys to be in, we want as many as possible of our lads to play international rugby and represent and achieve their dreams,” added Shaw. “Now Ben has got himself back in the picture by getting himself into the camp. He has just got to take this form and confidence and belief that he has got into it and see what happens.”
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I like Andy’s critical approach to all hot issues especially when it comes to the rugby big “bosses”. However, sorry Andy, I don’t support your “we shouldn’t be questioning the integrity of Karl Dickson or any other official”. May I ask why? They do have a lot of responsibility, but they are people like us with all their sins and weaknesses. We have to respect their decision during the games, but why they became untouchable afterwards and people cannot even criticize them and the ones, who does express their concerns, got punished for publicly analyzing their mistakes and asking questions. If they believe they did right, there shouldn’t be a problem for any of the refs to answer these “questions” publicly. I don’t really remember such cases. However, I do remember how Craig Joubert shown his running skills in 2015 or Pascal Gauzere shined in Cardiff in 2021. I do believe that Rassie, as anybody else, had a full right to share his vision of Nic Berry’s performance the same year. I do not support the hate in any form especially in public one, but creating the cast of untouchable refs and rugby bosses is not for me. As for Karl, he had all means to question his appointment for the game and since I don’t now whether he did it, blaming just RFU wouldn’t be quite correct at this moment. I love the game of rugby and almost every time I watch it I don’t support any team, I just wanna see the good game and fair referring. Sorry, Karl. last Saturday you got my Craig Joubert”s award of the round. It is up to Karl to prove that I am wrong, not to Andy or RFU’s corporate bla-bla-bla. Something like that…
Go to commentswell remember the blues had a guy called jed rowlands for a season. remember scott took his coaching team with him give him time
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