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England skipper Owen Farrell commits to Saracens' year in the Championship

(Photo by Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)

Owen Farrell has become the latest high profile player to commit to a season in the Championship with Saracens, joining Sean Maitland, Jamie George, Calum Clark, Mako Vunipola and Elliot Daly who have all signed on for second-tier duty during the last week.

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Farrell, 28, has been an integral part of the London club’s success for over a decade since making his debut in 2008.

He graduated from the academy in the same year alongside George, George Kruis, Jackson Wray and Will Fraser, and developed into an established England international, captaining his country at the 2019 World Cup.

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Farrell collected 17 points in Saracens’ first-ever Premiership final win and has since helped Mark McCall’s side to a further four domestic titles as well as three European Cups.

The British and Irish Lions fly-half is one match away from reaching 200 appearances for Sarries and is pleased to have his future confirmed ahead of next month’s restart of the suspended 2019/20 Gallagher Premiership which will end in Saracens’ automatic relegation to the Championship due to salary cap breaches.   

The club means a lot to me,” Farrell said. “I’ve been here a long, long time now and to be sorted going forward is brilliant. “Most of the senior players are in a similar position. They would do anything to put us in the best position possible and that was telling during the tough times this year and I’m sure that will be the case going forward as well.”

Director of rugby Mark McCall added: “Owen has grown up at Saracens; from a teenager in our academy to a central figure in English rugby.

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“His drive to improve is relentless, pushing everyone in the organisation – players and staff – to be better every day. Quite simply, Saracens would not be the club it is without Owen.

“Off the field, he is a grounded family man, who cares deeply about the club and the people here.  We are delighted he has committed his long-term future to Saracens.”

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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