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Owen Farrell's 'fight for' reaction to Saracens' redemption title win
By Liam Heagney
Owen Farrell has played down his Twickenham heroics even though Saracens boss Mark McCall claimed that his team’s No10 is playing the best rugby of his life and has taken his leadership to a whole new level.
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The out-half kicked 13 of his team’s points in Saturday’s 35-25 Gallagher Premiership final win over Sale, but it was his composure in the latter stages of the match when Sale were leading that stood out most.
The Sharks looked set to create an upset and win only their second Premiership title – and their first since 2006 – when they led 23-25 with 13 minutes remaining.
However, momentum decisively swung the way of a dogged Saracens and it left Farrell lifting the trophy following the conclusion of a thrilling final.
Victory was a massive outcome for the No10. It was just 11 weeks ago when he was left to stew on the England bench at Twickenham, Marcus Smith chosen to start in his place in the round four Guinness Six Nations match against France.
However, Farrell’s return to Saracens has since resulted in an upswing in personal fortunes, culminating in his team being crown champions of England just three years after they were automatically relegated to the Championship for repeated breaches of the salary cap.
“Look, I was just doing my bit in what the team was trying to do,” deflected Farrell post-game, refusing to lap up the individual praise proffered his way in the media room.
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“We have been preparing all week to be at our best this weekend and to not close up shop and not get into the type of game we didn’t want to get into. That didn’t go our way the whole game, but I thought our ability to keep accepting what had happened and get into the next thing allowed us to do that more so this year.”
Farrell couldn’t bring himself to talk about himself, a task that was left to his club boss McCall who enthused: “If you spent a week at our training ground, you wouldn’t believe just how influential he is, how clear he is with the playing group, how emotive he is, what standards he sets, how supportive he is to teammates young and old.
“He is playing the best rugby of his life at the moment but his leadership has gone to a whole new level. When the game was in the balance and it was 25-23 and we lacked a bit of energy, our senior players grasped the nettle really and saw us through very well in the last 15 or 20 minutes.
“We had a lot of control in that period of time, and that is down to their experience in those situations. They have been there and done it before and they showed a lot of experience when we needed it most.”
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Similar to how he downplayed his own performance in the comeback victory, Farrell also avoided gloating that Saracens’ title success was redemption for the salary cap scandal that resulted in them having to spend the 2020/21 season in the English second tier.
“No, no,” he replied when quizzed about the legacy of their run-in with Premiership officialdom. “There is a feeling of getting the best out of ourselves and that will carry on for a long time now.”
C’mon Owen, you can do better than that as regards summing up Saracens’ priceless return to the summit of the Premiership 11 months on from last season’s last-gasp defeat at the boot of Freddie Burns.
“In terms of this club and in terms of it being a place that you want to fight for and a special place to be, what has been created over the years and is still being created now is a place that nobody wants to leave, is a place that people want to be part of.
“Because of that there are people that have been here for 15 years, players that have been here for 15 years and the amount of players that have been here for 15 years for that amount of time I think it’s outstanding.
“You can talk about culture, you can talk about wanting to create something but what this club has done to keep that many people there for that long have that many people caring about the club and fighting for the club has properly made it into a genuine family.
“I know everybody says that and everybody talks about being tight-knit but the time we have spent together makes you care about each other and that has been created way before the stuff that you are talking about happened and I can see it happening for a long, long time now.”
