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Vunipola the latest to defend Owen Farrell
By Peter Thompson
Billy Vunipola has staunchly defended Owen Farrell's leadership skills after England's Six Nations capitulation against Scotland.
Farrell had a second half to forget as England blew a 31-point lead to draw 38-38 in an astonishing final match of the tournament at Twickenham on Saturday.
Eddie Jones replaced Farrell, sole captain in the absence of Dylan Hartley, and said the fly-half had "lost a bit of his edge" after Scotland roared back to retain the Calcutta Cup.
Vunipola says his Saracens and England team-mate does not deserve the criticism that has come his way.
The number eight told Omnisport: "The media is up and down and sometimes you can't believe the hype. I support Faz and what he's brought to the group, the way he's led us.
"It's just unfortunate that we didn't get the results that we wanted but it's coming, I believe that it will, I have faith that it will, we just have to show everyone else."
He added: "It was only a few weeks ago that he was one of the best [fly-halves in the world] and now obviously we have one bad half and now everyone's questioning, is he still our captain?
"That's the pressure that comes with playing for England and that's just something that we have to learn from, same for him.
"He has my support and I'm just in the team to try and help in any way that I can and he's doing the same but leading us."
- Vunipola was speaking at a coaching session he was leading with fellow Saracens and Harlequins players on behalf of Land Rover at Beaconsfield RFC.
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Latest Comments
Sad but unfortunately true as long as negativity is rewarded and positivity " penalised"
Go to comments“Explain clearly how that’s not an achievement?”
It is an achievement. It is less of an achievement than he managed with Barcelona. You said that ”He has gotten better with age. By every measure.” He hasn’t. Doesn’t mean he isn’t still extremely good though!
”I thought you don’t care what certain managers did 10 years ago…”
are you really this incapable of understanding the context of what I’m saying? My point is that Gatland was a good coach ten years ago, and isn’t a good coach now. So what he did ten years ago is relevant to whether he was good ten years ago - that is pretty basic stuff.
On the other hand, what Les Kiss did ten years ago isn’t relevant to how good he is now, just as what Gatland did ten years ago isn’t relevant to how good he is now.
”So you haven’t watched even a minute of Super Rugby this year?”
I was replying to your comment, given you have the memory of a goldfish and are unable to scroll up, I’m remind you what you said:
“Ireland won a long over due slam in 2009. The last embers of a golden generation was kicked on by a handful of young new players and a new senior coach. Kiss was brought in as defence coach and was the reason they won it. They’d the best defence in the game at the time. He all but invented the choke tackle. Fittingly they backed it up in the next world cup in their 2011 pool match against… Australia. The instantly iconic image of Will Genia getting rag-dolled by Stephen Ferris.”
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