FEATURE Why Owen Farrell moving to Paris would be good for English rugby

There is a very tidy team to be selected from English players now operating in or linked with moves to France. It has never happened before. Think Harry Williams, Jack Singleton with Toulon-touted Kyle Sinckler added in the front row, Dave Ribbans and Joel Kpoku behind them, and Jack Willis, Sam Simmonds with maybe Lewis Ludlam in the back row.

In the backs, Dan Robson could partner Joe Simmonds, with Owen Farrell [if he completes his reported move to Racing 92] and Joe Marchant in the centres; sprinkle on Henry Arundell, Jack Nowell and Elliot Daly, rumoured to be crossing the Channel next season, in the back three, et voilà: an oven-ready side of near-international quality.

The fact this team could even exist at all means only one thing: a sea change in the RFU ‘s long-cherished, cast-iron policy of stopping foreign-based players from playing for England. After the collapse of four professional entities in 2023, that policy should no longer be merely under review, it should be jettisoned immediately as the relic of an obsolete past. The stable door is wide open, and the horse has already bolted.

At the beginning of 2023, Gallagher Premiership champions Leicester warned the club needed an emergency £13m injection to survive a cash squeeze in the first quarter of the year. Their two principal benefactors, non-executive director Tom Scott and executive chairman Peter Tom, subscribed to £1.5m in loan notes which they do not expect to be repaid.

Just one week ago, Bristol Bears announced a record pre-tax loss of over £5m for 2022-2023. Were it not for the support of financial benefactor Steve Lansdown they would probably be headed through the door marked ‘administration’ – the same Stygian threshold through which Wasps, London Irish, Worcester Warriors and Jersey Reds have already passed. At the bottom of a very dark pool, Newcastle Falcons are hanging on to their professional identity by a few bloody fingernails, and the exodus of playing talent from the club suggests a staged drop to the Championship is on the cards.

It is not all one-way traffic, by any means. Round 10 featured the highest average attendance [30,420 per game] ever recorded in one round of Premiership fixtures, aided by the “Big Game” at a sold-out Twickenham, while a mere two wins and 10 points now separate the top seven clubs after 11 rounds of competition.

Luke Cowan-Dickie, Zach Mercer, Tom Willis, Gabre Oghre and Curtis Langdon have all travelled in the other direction, from France back to England. Anyone fortunate enough to experience the exhilarating 78-point, 11-try celebration of attacking rugby between Exeter and Northampton at Sandy Park will know the on-field game is in rude and vibrant health. There was only one bona fide England player among the 30 players who started that match in front of 14,000 raucous fans, and that was Henry Slade – the most notable of Steve Borthwick’s World Cup omissions.

But the Premiership’s Charon is punting his boat upstream, and there is no doubt the tide is towing the biggest stars in the league away from England to a new home across the Channel. Simply allowing them to go, without penalty to their international prospects, would release much of the financial pressure now bearing down on Premiership clubs. Mitigating windbreakers can be grown around a more laissez-faire market, via a minimum-cap eligibility – maybe 20-30 – for Englishmen working abroad.

Borthwick understood the difficulties when he commented: “What we are faced with here are extreme circumstances… It is about players’ livelihoods and [their] careers.

“From my point of view, I want to make sure we are able to select [from] the greatest number of players possible – and the best players possible.

“Do I want to make sure we have an England team where we have the best players available to us? Yes.”

The latest name to be mentioned in dispatches is also the biggest, that of Saracens and England skipper Farrell. He is out of contract in North London at the end of the season and been rumoured to be on the verge of signing for Racing 92 in Paris.

Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall was tight-lipped about the possibility of Farrell’s departure in an interview before last weekend’s encounter with Leicester Tigers at Welford Road, but he did pause to outline his misgivings about losing the club’s main man for the better part of the last decade: “We all want the Premiership to be as strong a competition as it can be, which is why it is essential that the rule that you can only play for England if you play in the Premiership needs to stay.

“Top 14 is a strong league, there’s no doubt about it, and it’s getting away. Hopefully, someone can do something about that.

“The games [in England] are brilliant, that is why I don’t really want to talk too negatively about the question [about Farrell’s move] you have just asked me. I think the Premiership is strong and entertaining. It’s tight and some teams are doing well in Europe so there is much to be positive [about].”

If the exodus of star players is a part and parcel of league shrinkage, maybe it is not a development to be feared at all. The competition in the Premiership this season is fiercer than it was last, and English clubs are performing better in Europe. At long last, the league is gravitating to a more sustainable level. It is temporarily retreating, to move forward again with more purpose.

Farrell himself looked far more relaxed than he has done in recent days at Welford Road. There were even a few on-field smiles, and a joke or two shared with referee Luke Pearce. Despite throwing an early interception which was returned for a five-pointer, Farrell provided ample illustration of the skillset which will be so valuable to his new club, if he completes the move to Paris.

The error did not faze Farrell – far from it. It unearthed the warrior within. Forget the high tackle red herrings, Farrell is probably the most dominant defender at 10 since the heyday of Jonny Wilkinson.

When he makes a mistake, the level of intensity does not drop, it immediately rises, and that shows up first in defence. In the first clip, Farrell sacrifices his body to attract the first cleanout from Leicester’s Ollie Chessum. He knows he will not win the ball himself, but he will create the opportunity for the man alongside him, Ben Earl, to pilfer it instead.

The second example is a classic Farrell ‘double involvement’ – first completing a low tackle on a big Tigers forward [George Martin], then immediately back on his feet to bully another [Jame Cronin] and lead the counter-ruck through to winning turnover. It is no longer enough for a professional 10 to rest in satisfying the aesthetic requirements, with nice touches on the run and pass – they must meet the higher physical demands of the modern game. It is a non-negotiable.

On attack, Farrell’s ‘nice touches’ are often underestimated because of his physical presence and big rugby personality. There is precision and real ‘feel’ to both right and left on the cross-kick.

When a 10 can launch attacking kicks of such accuracy to either side, landing the ball in a bare square metre or two of target space, it creates problems in covering the width of the field for the defence.

The other major benefit of Farrell on attack is his ability to blend with significant others around him, building a harmonious ‘offence-by-committee’ with multiple playmakers. It was he and Johnny Sexton who drove the British and Irish Lions’ Test-match attack in New Zealand in 2017 from inside centre and fly-half, and Farrell and George Ford who powered England to the World Cup final two years later in Japan. At Saracens he has operated in tandem with full-back Alex Goode for much of his time at the club, with extra input from Daly and Alex Lozowski when Saracens decided to evolve towards their current fluid attacking approach over the past two seasons.

Neither Goode not Lozowski were playing at Welford Road, so it was left to the Farrell-Daly axis at 10 and 13 to present the major defensive headaches for Tigers.

First quick hands by Farrell and Nick Tompkins release Rotimi Segun down the right sideline from a deep-set scrum, then Farrell and Daly connect directly in the second line to execute the 50/22 lineout turnover.

The pair were also at the heart of a lineout strike play to which Tigers never found a convincing answer.

Saracens ran this play on four occasions, making yardage and breaks each time, and Farrell’s touch on the pass and ability to read the defence were at the core of its success.

The reported move of Farrell to Parisian club Racing 92 has only added a stirring flourish to a pot that was already cooking. Players of international standard will continue to cross the Channel and seek their fortunes in France as long as the professional game in England remains ungovernable, and unsustainable.

When Premiership clubs are spending an average 98% of their revenue on player salaries – an overall 33% increase over the last four seasons – and five clubs are spending between 101-131%, that is the only sensible conclusion that can be drawn. The CVC private equity windfall in 2018 only worsened the situation, rather than improving it.

A wage structure spiralling out of control will naturally begin to haemorrhage talent to the only league in Europe which can hope to meet those salary expectations, and that is the Top 14. As the RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney commented: “We’ve been saying ‘less is more’ for a long time. The [clubs] didn’t like that approach a couple of years ago, mainly around loss of match-day revenue. But I think now, with player welfare challenges on the number of matches you can play, a tighter, more condensed league makes more sense.”

The French have a saying: reculer pour mieux sauter. Sometimes, you need to take a step back to make your next big jump forward. That moment has just arrived for the Premiership.