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Watch: The moment Owen Farrell proved he possessed the greatness gene

Owen Farrell.

England’s captain Owen Farrell has grown into the rugby world’s most polarising figure, but many detractors overlook his vast array of talents and forget about his match-winning ability.

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Wales found out in 2017 when a 26-year-old Farrell iced the game with one of the most deadly long balls in recent memory.

What’s more, it was the second consecutive week an Owen Farrell try assist won the game for England.

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Down 12-16 with 10-minutes to go at Twickenham against France the week before, Owen Farrell pulled the trigger on a perfectly timed short ball to put a steaming Ben Te’o over for the game-winning try.

Against Wales, the side was once again down 14-16 with five minutes remaining. A rushed clearing kick from centre Jonathan Davies failed to find touch, and England sparked a counter-attack.

As Farrell got the ball from George Ford, nothing really looked on, before the mercurial playmaker zinged a hot ball across the face of an unsuspecting Alex Cuthbert.

Cuthbert was showing Elliot Daly the sideline in what was a seriously miscalculated judgment of the England winger. Daly scorched past the Welsh winger to land the knockout blow, sucking the air out of a stunned Millennium Stadium.

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It was a stunning match-winning play by Farrell to punish the Welsh mistakes when England needed a play most. For good measure, Farrell then banged the conversion over from the sideline.

Owen Farrell’s killer instinct saved England’s opening two weeks of the Six Nations, which they would ultimately go on to win.

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Comments

2 Comments
C
Cameron 1101 days ago

meh, that's a bog standard pass made possible by a defensive alignment failure by Cuthbert.

If he could not make that pass, he wouldn't be playing first division, let alone internationals.

R
Richard 1101 days ago

He is still a tosser

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fl 9 hours ago
What is the future of rugby in 2025?

Smith generally isn't well connected to his forward pods; doesn't do a great job of distributing to those around him; and has inferior positional and contestable kicking games than Ford and Fin.


When England have had success over the past few years, its been either through (i) defensive rugby backed up with smart tactical kicking or (ii) high possession attacking phase play based on quick ruck ball. George Ford was key to the implementation of (i) in the RWC, and in the 6N win over Wales, and to the implementation of (ii) in the 6N games against Ireland and France. Smith did great at (ii) when running at tired defenders at the end of the Ireland match, but has never successfully implemented that gameplan from the start of a test because he doesn't distribute or support his forwards enough to create consistent fast ball and build attacks over multiple phases. Instead, his introduction to the starting side has resulted in much more playmaking responsibilities being forced onto whoever plays 9. Alex Mitchell copes ok with that, but I think he looks better with a more involved playmaking 10 outside him, and it really isn't a gameplan that works for JVP or Spencer. As a result of that the outside backs and centres have barely touched the ball when Smith has been at 10.


This might not have been too much of a disaster, as England have seemed to be moving slightly towards the sort of attacking gameplan that France played under Labit and Quins play (I think this was especially their approach when they won the league a few years ago - but its still a part of their play now), which is based on kicking to create broken field rugby. This is (i) a sharp departure from the gameplans that have worked for England in the past few seasons; (ii) bears very little relation to the tactical approaches of the non-Quins players in the England team; and (iii) is an absolute disaster for the blitz defence, which is weak in transition. Unsurprisingly, it has coincided with a sharp decline in England's results.

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