Owen Farrell is back in the groove. Good enough to come back for England, too, and add to his 112 caps for his country? Oh, ho, what a question – and has there ever been one so loaded with baggage?
The answer is a conditional “yes” – dependent on how the now 34-year-old’s fitness profile stacks up after his one season with Racing 92 in France, and if he wants to do it, and on how England head coach Steve Borthwick is planning for the next World Cup in 2027.
He has certainly shown he is firing in Saracens’ first two wins this season, over Newcastle Red Bulls last week and Bristol Bears by a dominant 50-17 on Saturday night.
Borthwick left Farrell out of England’s first training squad of this season, instead choosing fly-halves George Ford, Fin Smith and Marcus Smith, and possible No 12s in Ollie Lawrence, Fraser Dingwall and Seb Atkinson.
10 or 12? England aspirations? Ash splash celebration?Owen Farrell answers all the big questions after an impressive return in Saracens colours pic.twitter.com/gWycK8v2U6
— Rugby on TNT Sports (@rugbyontnt) October 4, 2025There again, the British & Irish Lions coached by Farrell’s father Andy left him out of the first squad picked in May but they eventually called him up.
And over the weekend in The Sunday Times serialisation of Andy’s new autobiography, we learnt more about how that panned out.
Farrell senior said his son “broke down in tears” during a phone call in which Owen turned down the offer to tour, although the extract does not state the reasons why.
“At the press conference [of the squad announcement],” Andy writes, “I was asked if Owen had been under consideration. Obviously, I didn’t feel I could tell the full story.”
Farrell gives his teammates some words of encouragement (Photo: Getty)Not telling the full story tends to leave the media and some of the public frustrated or perplexed, but that is the Farrells’ choice.
As Andy also writes: “He [Owen], like me, grew up only wanting to play the game for the love of it. Not to be a big personality off the pitch or revel in the celebrity of it all.”
So it’s typical of Owen that, after Saturday’s win, he gave a wait-and-see reply to questions about England.
Maybe Farrell has given up on it, but prefers not to say, or he believes it’s unsporting or non-strategic to be seen to chase it, or Borthwick has given him the nod one way or the other.
Bear in mind, the Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall says Farrell would not have been brought back to London if it hadn’t been for a long-term injury to Alex Lozowski creating a dispensation for an extra player under the salary cap.
So Farrell might have had another season at Racing, or moved to Leicester Tigers or somewhere else.
It is possible he is just making a late-career swansong on the field before a transition into coaching.
Fergus Burke sends Bristol Bears’ Louis Rees-Zammit to the shops (Photo: Getty)What we do know is, wearing the No 12 jersey against Bristol rather than his favourite No 10, Farrell was straight into his world-class goal-kicking with a magnificent conversion from the touchline.
Saracens have centres Lozowski, Olly Hartley, Elliot Daly, Sam Spink and Angus Hall injured, but Argentina’s Lucio Cinti should be available again next week after Rugby Championship duty.
So the club will soon have options on whether to start Farrell at 10 or 12 or on the bench, and the same goes for England.
As Saracens pummelled an injury-ravaged Bristol with seven tries, Farrell converted six of them and a penalty.
He flung the lovely flat passes off both sides that stretch defences.
He ran smooth loop moves in a dual-playmaker approach with the No 10 Fergus Burke, including for one of the exciting youngster Jack Bracken’s two tries.
Jack Bracken with the inside-outside step from the Owen Farrell assist The @Saracens attack is firing today @TNTSports & @DiscoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/4sCELPlD5f
— Rugby on TNT Sports (@rugbyontnt) October 4, 2025And McCall said of the Burke-Farrell 10-12 combo: “It looks pretty good, doesn’t it?”
Austin Healey in TV commentary on Friday said he’d happily have Farrell at 12 for England outside Ford.
The qualities of leadership that Farrell senior gave as a reason for eventually getting Owen out to Australia with the Lions, culminating in two Tests off the bench, will always be there.
A spiral bomb drew admiring “woos” from the crowd, and a timed-out conversion attempt didn’t matter as Saracens were 43-5 ahead.
There isn’t room here to interrogate why Farrell isn’t a national treasure, but just to pick three possible tipping points, there is the absence of a World Cup winner’s medal (unlike, say, Jonny Wilkinson); the public warmth towards Farrell when he grinned through the All Blacks’ haka before England’s wonderful 2019 World Cup semi-final victory, only for it to be shattered when he stepped off the plane back from Japan and straight into the Saracens salary-cap storm; and several occasions when Farrell’s career was flying along but grounded by a red card or criticism over tackle technique.
Some have pointed a finger at middle England and argued that Farrell’s Wigan rugby league face simply never fit.
Andy in his book is offering more food for thought.
He describes how he was 16 and unmarried when Owen came into this world.
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“I wasn’t used to holding a baby – probably no 16-year-old boy is,” Andy writes.
“But the amazing thing was that as soon as he was born, the first time I held him, it felt entirely natural. I was instantly obsessed with my son.”
The obsession felt by rugby fans for Owen is obviously very different, and we wait to see if the next twist is an England recall or something much less dramatic.
McCall was asked, in the long run, does he see Saracens’ choice as either Burke or Farrell at No 10?
“No, not at all. We’ll just do what the team needs, and… Owen in particular is very, very strong on whatever the team needs, he’ll do.”
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