Owen Farrell

Where are we with Owen?

Some see him as a must start, key player and mental driving force.

Others see him as limited ability, and petulant, and restricting the team?

How do you see him. Is he an essential cog, or now that we have the centres sorted should he be put aside for the more talented ford.

He will continue to be Eddie's first name on the team sheet.

Three times this season England had scored 30+ points at half time. No other side has achieved this more than once in a 6Ns season (according to summat I read). You do not achieve that (plus leads away from home at HT against two of the best three sides in the world) if your FH is restricting you. 

The issue is that when things are starting to go wrong Farrell seems unable to stem the flow. This is also in part down to the sad lack of leadership within the entire team. Youngs and Farrell have got us into winning positions in all teh games, yet both failed to offer direction when we needed it.

We do not need to throw the baby out with teh dishwater, but Eddie needs to:

a) Work on the mentality of the side (which he has admitted)
b) Hook his "pedestal" players (aka deities  )quicker in a game when they stop being positive influencers.

If England go away from Owen as central cog again, they'll pay the price. So he's temperamental and sometimes looks for too many cards. That's the edge you want to be on to have an x-factor.

England have had a good Six Nations. They've shown what they can do. To hell with the Slam, there are bigger fish in the sea this season. They've stretched their legs again from their November 'rebirth'and hasn't Owen Farrell been central to that revival?

LondonTiger wrote:He will continue to be Eddie's first name on the team sheet.

Three times this season England had scored 30+ points at half time. No other side has achieved this more than once in a 6Ns season (according to summat I read). You do not achieve that (plus leads away from home at HT against two of the best three sides in the world) if your FH is restricting you. 

The issue is that when things are starting to go wrong Farrell seems unable to stem the flow. This is also in part down to the sad lack of leadership within the entire team. Youngs and Farrell have got us into winning positions in all teh games, yet both failed to offer direction when we needed it.

We do not need to throw the baby out with teh dishwater, but Eddie needs to:

a) Work on the mentality of the side (which he has admitted)
b) Hook his "pedestal" players (aka deities  )quicker in a game when they stop being positive influencers.

I agree with this LT.

There were very few big name players really getting the group together when it was falling apart.

Farrell does not come across a petulant to me, but he does come across as a liability.

After listening to interviews Farrell has done recently, he comes across as a very passionate, articulate young man, who knows what his role is, not only in rugby, but society as a whole.

But, on the pitch, he can be a liability, and we have discussed this at length on numerous Lions threads, in defence he is a liability, he is not strong enough for todays game, and as he has tried to adjust, his technique is questionable at best, he should have seen yellow once or twice for no arm and late tackles.

His heart is always in the right place, but far too often he gets carried over the gain line when trying to tackle, and he shoots out of the line far to often, especially when he plays in the center.

If you compare him to his peers, whilst he is immaculate with the boot, his all round game is found wanting, he does not defend as good as the likes of Dan Biggar, he does not create as much as Finn Russell, being good with kicking the ball is not what playing at 10 is all about anymore, you need to be much, much more.

But he is a young man, and no doubt he can work on his weakest areas and improve them, it's obvious he has the work ethic to achieve it, by the time this kid hits 30, he will be one of the best in the 6N and more than a match for his peers.

Think you'll find he's already one of the best in the world.

SecretFly wrote:If England go away from Owen as central cog again, they'll pay the price.  So he's temperamental and sometimes looks for too many cards.

He may look for cards, but he never seems to get them!

It might actually do him a bit of good if he was to cop one in a big game and make him realise that he needs to pull back a bit sometimes! Sometimes you have got to learn from experience.

Hopefully in the WC . Don't be rushing these lessons BigGee....

SecretFly wrote:Hopefully in the WC .  Don't be rushing these lessons BigGee....

Now now

Owen is not Captain material.

Doesn't look like the same player he once was, would have to question whether he has taken a knock to the head.

To me Farrell has always been a limited and petulant player and he holds the team back with his limited ability to create space.

England will continue to disappoint their fans the longer he is captain and 10.  Farrell would not get into any of the other 6N teams.  He is not even a good enough kicker except maybe for Italy

Owen Farrell, like many before him and many after him, is a great player who has the odd off game.


He may not be the most exciting 10 but he is more than an effective 10, he is certainly up there with the best in the world. Some see him as petulant (like Sexton) but I see him as passionate and its that passion that makes good players great and he is a great player.

He is not a captain or a leader though and I think that being captain has taken his focus away somewhat.

I agree with the general consensus that Owen Farrell is a top player and one of the best in the world in his position who maybe didn’t have his best tournament.

Does Wilison have the potential as captain as he inked in as a starter and looks very motivated.

One of the best in the world?  He is not even the best in England.  His tackling is poor, he cannot create space and his head goes at critical moments in games.

As a scots fan I am more than happy he continues to get selected as the team is weaker with him in it.

We've scored 10 more tries than anyone else this tournament with Farrell at 10 for huge parts of it.

Farrell was top points scorer with 59 - 16 more than anyone else. Farrell has also got 2 try assists, including a switch of play call and floated miss pass for one of May's try's against France that I'm sure other 10s may have got more credit for. I can't tell you which his other try assist was. This stat won't include "key" passes - e.g. his fizzed miss-two to Daly which left Earls for dead and left a 2-on-1 for May's try against Ireland 2 minutes into the tournament.

He kicked at 82%, which is phenomenal considering how many we scored out wide. He went 8 from 9 for penalties and 15 from 19 for conversions - missing Slade's first try against Ireland (left touchline), May's first two tries against France (both down the left touchline) and Tuilagi's second try against Italy (right touchline). I think all 4 of those were on or outside the 5m line.

His achilles heel has been his tackle completion stat in recent years (although some argue that this doesn't mean he's a weak defender), but even that was up at 80% this year. You can add to that his 4 turnovers won as he continued to target the ball in the tackle and made a few notable rips. Sexton was the only first choice 10 who had a notably better tackle completion rate - up at 85% - although he only won 1 turnover.

This isn't an Owen Farrell love in. He does make mistakes, he does sometimes give away penalties and he does sometimes get rattled when things aren't going his way - which isn't something you want for your 10 or your captain, and that situation is compounded when the same guy is holding both roles.

But in terms of raw contribution, even the stats bear out how good he was this tournament. Yes, there are some things the stats don't touch on, the intangibles like leadership and influence which we all want to see more of from him. But some of the stuff that gets written about him is bonkers.

He's by far our best 10. Over 8 halves of rugby, he was the best 10 in the tournament. Two nightmare halves blotted his, and England's, overall record, but that doesn't undo all the good work he did over the rest of the tournament.

Is he the 10 to lead us to World Cup victory? Maybe, maybe not. But if he isn't I don't think anyone else is either.

TJ wrote:One of the best in the world?  He is not even the best in England.  His tackling is poor, he cannot create space and his head goes at critical moments in games.

As a scots fan I am more than happy he continues to get selected as the team is weaker with him in it.

That’s just factually incorrect mate.

What Farrell does is fine.  Its what he doesn't do that is harder to see and makes for his limitations.  He simply does not have the passing ability or skill set of a top 10.  Ford is clearly a better attacking 10 than Farrell and at 80% his kick % is not good and his tackle stats are awful

He makes few mistakes yes.  But neither is he capable of creating space in the way the best 10s do

And yet he is a top 10. It's a mystery.

I've been a Farrell advocate, quite vocally, including his captaincy.

I'm now revising my opinion! He's a great, great player, and just because he had a bad half it doesn't make him any less so, but his implosion seemed to bring out a level of petulance I thought he was over. He lost it.

I don't know how much work the England side do as a whole with sports psychologists, or whether individual players take the time to work on the mental side of their game in a formal, structured manner, but I think it's an area that does need work.

Still one of the first names on the sheet for me, but maybe without the * next to it. Like an opening batsman struggling for runs with the weight of the captaincy, it does seem to be affecting him. That said, we had a pretty decent opener who captained the side once he grew into it.

No rush, but there's work to do on the top two inches for him.

(Well, no rush, but before September would be nice, Owen...)

It would be interesting to see how he would go in a side without a dominate pack. I think this makes him look a better player than he is. Anytime the pressure is on, he seems to struggle. So maybe the points are coming from the overall strength in the team

Just a thought

R!skysports wrote:It would be interesting to see how he would go in a side without a dominate pack. I think this makes him look a better player than he is. Anytime the pressure is on, he seems to struggle. So maybe the points are coming from the overall strength in the team

Just a thought

That's the same for everyone, how many league and European trophies did Wilko win at Newcastle?

R!skysports wrote:It would be interesting to see how he would go in a side without a dominate pack. I think this makes him look a better player than he is. Anytime the pressure is on, he seems to struggle. So maybe the points are coming from the overall strength in the team

Just a thought

Name a no.10 for whom this is not true.

Motherajaysus! How time flies. Only a few short weeks ago he was a Starchild come down from the Heavens to add magic dust on the doings of England v Ireland.

Will you all give all the players a break, please. They played their hearts out ( well everything that wasn't in a green shirt did). So mistakes happened along the way. Happens to all players eventually. Just look at the intercepted ball that poor Anscombe threw in the final minutes of the 2019 World Cup final. He'll never live it down but mistakes happen.
Farrell is a good player. He doesn't need the Hot-Cold treatment from fans. England are in good shape....wish we had their presumed problems.

lostinwales wrote:

R!skysports wrote:It would be interesting to see how he would go in a side without a dominate pack. I think this makes him look a better player than he is. Anytime the pressure is on, he seems to struggle. So maybe the points are coming from the overall strength in the team

Just a thought

Name a no.10 for whom this is not true.

Forwards win matches, backs decide by how much

An old one, but still true.

Cowards win matches. Real gamblers win fortunes.

Too slow can't tackle no vision and yet makes turnovers throws some killer passes and of course kicks everything. And the haters go for the petulant thing big time. Going forward we have the tools to scare any team, and he is at the centre of that.

He's becoming an exceptional player, within the limits of what he has. He's not a Johnno though and unfortunately I don't think we have one of those elsewhere.

SecretFly wrote:Cowards win matches.  Real gamblers win fortunes.

A few win fortunes, but most real gamblers lose everything

Ricardo74 wrote:

I don't know how much work the England side do as a whole with sports psychologists, or whether individual players take the time to work on the mental side of their game in a formal, structured manner, but I think it's an area that does need work.

Quite a lot, and Eddie has said he will be seeking extra help in this area.

I do wonder if this generation of English players are a touch mollycoddled. They have pretty much all been in major academies from their schooldays with everything planned for them. The academy system does everything they need and if it cannot others are there to pick up the slack, I believe Ford used to do Farrell's homework for him!

They have lived breathed and eaten rugby from a very young age and have become highly skilled athletes - but too often automatons at the same time.

He does not kick everything.  2018 6N his kicking % was lower than the other goalkickers.

Don't spoil silly maxims with reality TV, lost.

TJ wrote:He does not kick everything.  2018 6N his kicking % was lower than the other goalkickers.

The problem is that we all like to pick and choose stats. You'd always rate Russell higher through blotting out all the many times when he has messed up, while picking up on every last mistake by Farrell and ignoring the good stuff. Russell is getting better, but the quality of his play moves between wider extremes than most 10's.

LondonTiger wrote:

Ricardo74 wrote:

I don't know how much work the England side do as a whole with sports psychologists, or whether individual players take the time to work on the mental side of their game in a formal, structured manner, but I think it's an area that does need work.

Quite a lot, and Eddie has said he will be seeking extra help in this area.

I do wonder if this generation of English players are a touch mollycoddled. They have pretty much all been in major academies from their schooldays with everything planned for them. The academy system does everything they need and if it cannot others are there to pick up the slack, I believe Ford used to do Farrell's homework for him!

They have lived breathed and eaten rugby from a very young age and have become highly skilled athletes - but too often automatons at the same time.

Agree, actually, and it's interesting that the two you cite, in Ford and Farrell, are both from "rugby" families, with decorated fathers across the codes. I would suspect that there are members within the squad who do have a broader "life experience" (for want of a better expression), such as the Vunipolas, Genges and Sincklers...

Not having a dig at Sexton here but he was named World Rugby Player of the year recently, deservedly so in my mind but is Sexton any more attacking than Farrell?

Farrell 74 caps 10 Tries for 816 points
Sexton 89 caps 11 Tries for 766 points


Farrell averages around 11 points per game to Sextons 8 1/2.

I would say that Farrell's record stands up pretty well myself.

Ricardo74 wrote:

LondonTiger wrote:

Ricardo74 wrote:

I don't know how much work the England side do as a whole with sports psychologists, or whether individual players take the time to work on the mental side of their game in a formal, structured manner, but I think it's an area that does need work.

Quite a lot, and Eddie has said he will be seeking extra help in this area.

I do wonder if this generation of English players are a touch mollycoddled. They have pretty much all been in major academies from their schooldays with everything planned for them. The academy system does everything they need and if it cannot others are there to pick up the slack, I believe Ford used to do Farrell's homework for him!

They have lived breathed and eaten rugby from a very young age and have become highly skilled athletes - but too often automatons at the same time.

Agree, actually, and it's interesting that the two you cite, in Ford and Farrell, are both from "rugby" families, with decorated fathers across the codes. I would suspect that there are members within the squad who do have a broader "life experience" (for want of a better expression), such as the Vunipolas, Genges and Sincklers...

Well the Vunipolas have lived and breathed rugby all their lives. They have just done so in several countries. Genge and Sinckler are real outsiders though, but I don't think either would make ideal leaders however wonderful the quality of their games are.

Mako and Billy are also from a rugby family, and had rugby scholarships to prestigious public schools. While clubs are now trying to broaden their players horizons it is still often laid on a plate for them, whether it is a work placement or a shared investment.

Genge does indeed have "real life" experience, but maybe not all of it the sort we would recommend.

Stand corrected, fellas, I thought MV & BV went to state school. Ta.

I also thought Farrell was lucky to again, escape a card of any colour for a late no arms tackle.

I saw AWJ do two seatbelt tackles plus a choke tackle.

Funny what the eye can see when the other one is closed.

This thread is not about AWJ.

LordDowlais wrote:This thread is not about AWJ.

All threads should be about AWJ, he is incredible.

LordDowlais wrote:I also thought Farrell was lucky to again, escape a card of any colour for a late no arms tackle.

I think the ref called it well myself. Farrell was committed and basically went to protect himself, a natural reaction. No arms tackle but circumstances see it as a penalty. If it is the charge down you are referring too.

eirebilly wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:I also thought Farrell was lucky to again, escape a card of any colour for a late no arms tackle.

I think the ref called it well myself. Farrell was committed and basically went to protect himself, a natural reaction. No arms tackle but circumstances see it as a penalty. If it is the charge down you are referring too.

He made contact with his shoulder to the head, but I suppose what your saying does have some substance, but either way he was lucky, I have seen a red given for a lot less.

AWJ is the new Ritchie McCaw.

LordDowlais wrote:

eirebilly wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:I also thought Farrell was lucky to again, escape a card of any colour for a late no arms tackle.

I think the ref called it well myself. Farrell was committed and basically went to protect himself, a natural reaction. No arms tackle but circumstances see it as a penalty. If it is the charge down you are referring too.

He made contact with his shoulder to the head, but I suppose what your saying does have some substance, but either way he was lucky, I have seen a red given for a lot less.

Indeed, the one that Cipriani walked for earlier in the season was innocuous in comparison, the other player not really hurt at all.

In a collision like that you are taking a massive risk and cannot complain if the decision goes against you.

LordDowlais wrote:

eirebilly wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:I also thought Farrell was lucky to again, escape a card of any colour for a late no arms tackle.

I think the ref called it well myself. Farrell was committed and basically went to protect himself, a natural reaction. No arms tackle but circumstances see it as a penalty. If it is the charge down you are referring too.

He made contact with his shoulder to the head, but I suppose what your saying does have some substance, but either way he was lucky, I have seen a red given for a lot less.

As have I but in this instance I do not believe there is a case for a Red card. Felt it was perfectly handled.

LordDowlais wrote:This thread is not about AWJ.

It should be, why are people so negative and want to hit a man who is already down.

The AWJ appreciation thread should be encouraged, lets big the man up and be positive for a change.
Giving the mascot his coat was brilliant.

TightHEAD wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:This thread is not about AWJ.

It should be, why are people so negative and want to hit a man who is already down.

The AWJ appreciation thread should be encouraged, lets big the man up and be positive for a change.
Giving the mascot his coat was brilliant.

I saw the picture of that, a really nice touch that he could be thinking about the kid (who looked absolutely freezing) with everything else going on.

Kudos to him.

TJ wrote:He does not kick everything.  2018 6N his kicking % was lower than the other goalkickers.

Did you look at how many penalties vs conversions each has taken? Penalties are the kicker saying "I've got this" whereas conversions you're just stuck with wherever the try was scored. It's therefore common sense that a player taking more penalties than conversions should have a higher percentage than a player who is taking more conversions than penalties.

England scored the most tries, therefore Farrell took the most conversions (his 19 was at least 5 more than the total try tally for anyone other team). He missed 4 of these, all in the 5m channels. I've already broken down which of these he missed.

He also missed a penalty against Ireland. Couldn't tell you where that was from, I do remember him lining up a long shot that was in Daly territory but I thought he had made that one.

He made his other 23 kicks for an 82% kick rate.

82%  mediocre for a international kicker.  Needs to be 90% plus like top kickers.  Better than last year where he was at 75% I suppose