Owen Farrell is relishing the prospect of England’s summer trip to South Africa. The tour captain took time out of Saracens’ preparations for Saturday’s Premiership play-off against Wasps to speak for the first time since his appointment.
“South Africa is a brilliant tour, a brilliant challenge,” he said of the land that hosted his first England trip, in 2012. “This tour is one we’re going to enjoy. They are a good team that is under new coaching, so we probably don’t know what we’re going to get. The key is to be ready for anything.”
Eddie Jones puts heat on England in search for World Cup game changers
Farrell has captained England before but this will be the first time he has led a camp. The appointment seems a natural one. It is not hard to imagine it becoming permanent. Nevertheless, he inherits an unfamiliar run of three consecutive defeats, while Eddie Jones muses, as he did last week, on the lack of unity he sensed developing in England’s disappointing Six Nations campaign.
It falls to Farrell to lend new direction, should that be required. Jones rang to tell him of the “massive honour” but they appear not to have discussed the coach’s other concerns.
“Lack of unity?” said Farrell, when asked to consider Jones’s assessment of England’s Six Nations, and he paused for a few seconds to gather his thoughts. “I’ll have to see what is being talked about. I can’t really say. I could sit here talking about England but I haven’t thought about it too much yet. I don’t want to start just blabbing. I’ve been concentrating, especially this week, on what’s in front of us.”
If England are searching for a way out of the sudden slump they find themselves in, after prolonged and unparalleled success, they could do worse than study the example set by Saracens this season. Their run of seven consecutive defeats in all competitions, either side of Christmas, did not appear to trouble them. They finished the regular season having scored more points than any club since 1999, when the Premiership was a 14-team affair, and with the best points differential ever.
“I thought it was a brilliant period for us. We would be a lot worse off if we hadn’t had it,” said Farrell of the seven consecutive defeats. “ It was a bit unfamiliar but we did a lot of figuring out. We have definitely come out the other side the better for it.”
England will hope to apply a similar aptitude for problem solving on the tour to South Africa this summer. Farrell may not be thinking about this one just yet, but the puzzles requiring his attention are set to continue well after the end of May.
Meanwhile, three men have been fined after they hurled foul-mouthed abuse at Jones the day after Scotland’s Calcutta Cup win in February.
Footage released online showed the group approaching the 58-year-old for a photograph as he left Manchester Oxford Road railway station to catch a waiting car.
Richie Cleeton, 22, Connor Inglis, 25, and Brett Grant, 23, from Edinburgh, all pleaded guilty to a public order offence of using threatening abusive words and behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress.
Sentencing the trio at Manchester magistrates’ court, chair of the bench Joe Bangudu said: “This was a short-lived but disgraceful incident. Your language, although described by your defence as industrial, we think was vile and therefore unacceptable directed to anybody. The location where you chose to display your drunken behaviour was in a public vicinity, with not just Mr Jones in that proximity.
“No one should ever have to put up with such language and behaviour. We have not seen any sort of remorse by you. That is a concern.”
Cleeton, of Carrick Knowe Avenue, was fined £120, Inglis, of Cornhill Terrace, received a fine of £105 and Grant, of Drum Crescent, was given a financial penalty of £140. All three were also ordered to pay court costs of £115 each.
Mr Bangudu said Grant had prolonged the behaviour and language by opening the car door once Mr Jones was inside.