Romantics are few in professional rugby union nowadays. The drone hovering in the grey afternoon sky above Saracens’ training ground is an illustration, tracking the players’ every move. Human assistants stare unblinkingly at GPS readings on their iPads, almost as if the distant on-field figures are remotely controlled. It is not an environment for the shy or diffident; literally and psychologically there is nowhere to hide. To survive, let alone prosper, requires thick skins and strong minds, regardless of age or background.
There is a certain superficial glamour about top-level rugby but, mostly, it is hard yakka, particularly as the January winter weather worsens. You have to want it so badly that nothing else matters. To represent your country you have to want it even more. Even after all that you will be flattened by the relentless Owen Farrell, the steeliest warrior of the lot, the Saracen who wants it more than every player, coach and smooth drone operator combined.
A total break from the game proved impossible even when England’s tilted‑head assassin escaped to Hope Cove in south Devon last weekend to shake off a minor bug. “You can always feel like you should be doing something,” he says, almost apologetically.
Give him a day off and he is liable to end up watching rugby on TV, although a new puppy – a Hungarian Vizsla named Ronnie – offers some distraction. “I still watch all the games, not because I feel I have to but because it’s what I enjoy. I’m not sure my girlfriend does.”
As another world-class goal-kicker, some bloke named Jonny Wilkinson, could testify, there is a desperately thin line between dedication and obsession. Pros tend not to discuss the “O” word much; it implies they are in the grip of something they cannot fully rationalise. So, Owen, is that how it feels? “You can become obsessive but you enjoy it – that’s what you like doing. It is just how I am. I don’t try my hardest to be like this.”
Is it getting easier to cope with? “Over the last year I have become more in control of it. I don’t feel like I have to hit so many kicks. I have become a lot better at thinking: ‘Is it actually helping? Am I OK? OK, stop.’”
Whatever motivates Farrell as he surveys the distant posts, it is working. He has 540 points for England, second only to Wilkinson’s haul (the latter had 680 at this same juncture) of 1,179 points in 91 Tests and 140 clear of Paul Grayson, the man he overtook against France in last year’s Six Nations. The “new Jonny” is poised to hit the 50-Test mark next month, is already a British & Irish Lion and helped his club to secure a domestic and European double last season. Dan Carter is the latest to name him as the Lions’ probable starting No10 in New Zealand in June. Most strikingly of all, he is just 25 years old and has the mindset, inner drive and growing maturity to shatter every record out there. When people mention Maro Itoje as England’s potential 2019 World Cup captain, they are arguably discussing the wrong Saracen.
The game against the Scarlets on Sunday offers a tantalising glimpse of the next level. Farrell will be captain – with Itoje in the ranks – as his side seek to clinch Champions Cup knockout qualification with a round to spare and break Munster’s 10-year-old record with a 14th successive European victory. The Welsh region also happen to be the team against whom the fly-half commenced his senior journey in 2008; he was a mere 17 years and 11 days old when the Sarries coach at the time, Eddie Jones (whatever happened to him?), made him the youngest debutant in English professional rugby history. What strikes you from the old pictures is how ready he looked from the outset.
As the son of the all-conquering rugby league legend Andy Farrell, this was perhaps to be expected. Was it inevitable he would also inherit a few of his dad’s leadership genes? “I guess so,” he replies. “All I can remember is watching my dad play and how he was, not just what he did. You have to be a voice, you have to be able to speak up.”
Farrell Jr has captained Sarries a couple of times but, vocally, he has been calling the shots for years. “I was probably not as bossy as I am now but I was loud enough. I didn’t go into my shell. But that’s a tiny part of what it is to try and lead a team around the field. That was the easy bit for me. You just try and develop from there.”
As England’s Six Nations season draws near, Farrell is also edging tentatively into other high-profile arenas. Recently, he featured alongside LeBron James, Conor McGregor and Eden Hazard in an advert for a well‑known brand of headphones, pumping his chest to the tune of Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes. “I bet everyone’s thinking: ‘Who’s that?’” he says, snorting but sounding genuinely thrilled. “It is pretty cool to be in it. They are people that you look up to, they are proper superstars.”
Alternatively, maybe the next proper English superstar is sitting right here in St Albans, explaining why dwelling on 2016 is a waste of time. “What’s the point? I don’t feel the need,” he says. “If I was to sit there and think about anything it would be: ‘What can you look forward to, what can you put your time into and what can help you grow up?’ Rugby is a game that’s constant. If you are not growing with it you get left behind.”
Little Ronnie, one suspects, will not be short of exercise. Apparently he loves chasing balls, which is lucky. No one relishes kicking them more than his owner, to the point where Farrell will challenge himself by “making it more of a competition, putting more pressure on yourself so you have to walk away”.
For now he seems unscarred by the darker side of obsession. “It is something I enjoy doing, I feel comfortable when I am doing it. It is tough to do but easy in a way, if you know what I mean. You have to step away if you recognise it’s getting on top of you ... but I know what helps and what doesn’t.”
So commences a year that could involve Farrell lining up vital goals against Ireland, his father’s current employers, in Dublin in March. England’s lethal weapon, though, is currently not looking beyond rugby’s stricter tackle sanctions – “Some people are going to be very unlucky” – and ensuring a slightly dented Saracens squad do not ease up.
And England? “Everyone can always improve. We are No2 in the world and we want to be No1. To do that you’ve got to get consistently better.”
It is hardly Wordsworth or Shelley but, in modern rugby, poetry in motion takes a different form.
