There is no understating just how good Ben Earl has been for England over the past six months. Singled out by Laurence Dallaglio as England’s best player at the 2023 Rugby World Cup, Earl has rolled this momentum into the 2024 Six Nations and earned a Player of the Match performance in last weekend’s win against Wales.
The Saracen was criminally overlooked by Eddie Jones, when the Australian was at the helm of the England national team. Despite winning the 2021/22 Premiership Player of the Year Award, Earl struggled to make a re-occurring dent on the test match circuit. However, since Steve Borthwick took over as England head coach, Earl has been rightfully awarded the opportunities and has taken them in his stride.
Since Borthwick was appointed head coach, Earl has accrued 14 test caps. This is already one more appearence, than his sporadic involvement throughout the entirety of the Eddie Jones era. Earl continues to push from strength to strength, and spoke in the post-match media scrum following England’s 16-14 win over Wales, in round two of the 2024 Six Nations. The 26-year-old was delighted to get one over on the British Isle rivals, and presented immense confidence for the remainder of the tournament.
“I think we know we can win from almost any position.” Earl said. “You’ve only got to look at the (Rugby World Cup) warm-up game against this lot to this game now, from 12 men, to 13 men, at point.
“We just feel as though we’ve got a good game to fall back on in terms of when things are tight we can squeeze games out, and find a way to win. It requires a full buy-in from the squad, and that’s what’s most pleasing, how aligned everyone is in that way.”
“I feel like the whole team in general, our backs were against the wall, we got together and said ‘look, it feels like we’re not getting the rub of the green here from the ref and/or the context of the game, so we need to almost bunker down or come out swinging’ in a way.
“Other England teams, previous regimes, we maybe might have gone into our shells and reverted to an individual focus, but we just said how collected we were and how aligned we were in our messaging and in our next actions, so we were really pleased.”
The next step for England following the fallow week, is a trip up to Murrayfield for round three of the Six Nations. Earl is excited to take on Scotland on February 24th, as he gets set for a reunion with his Saracens teammate Andy Christie. Having just gone to war against Nick Tompkins of Wales, Earl is no stranger in lining up against his club colleagues and even relishes the opportunity to secure the bragging rights at the Stone X Stadium.
“He’s been brilliant for us, in terms of a few us missing through injury, the World Cup and whatever. He and a few others have really acquitted themselves really well for Sarries. He’s a brilliant player, a brilliant athlete and a good mate.
“I like playing against my mates, it’s good fun, obviously going up against Nick today. It’s good craic, and definitely better when you win. He was sipping on a Fanta and I was having a beer in the changing rooms!”
Keeping the focus on his Saracens teammates, Earl expressed the changing of the guard in relation to the England captaincy. Having played with both Owen Farrell and Jamie George for a number of years in North London, Earl understands the attributes that both men bring to the England armband. Despite a player of Farrell’s quality stepping down, Earl believes that George has done an excellent job in leading England into this new era.
“I’ve really enjoyed being around it, the way that Steve and Jamie have created a different but similar environment to what Owen and Steve created, I’m really enjoying being a part of it.”
“I think everyone knew that our game had to evolve a little bit, if not a fair amount, after the World Cup. The way that we built our cornerstones of our game during that campaign, then coming into this, I felt like we had to improve.
“Jamie’s taken that burden of responsibility I guess, on with such aplomb, and acquitted himself so well that some of the younger boys are loving being around, they feel like they can be themselves, and I don’t think that was always the case in previous regimes.
“Owen was brilliant with that, but the environment that Steve and Jamie have created has been brilliant.”
Despite predominantly playing as a flanker for Saracens, Earl presented all the top number eight attributes for his try against Wales. The versatile back-row collected the ball at the back of a dominant England scrum, spotted some space in the Wales defensive line, and powered over a trio of Welsh defenders to score a stunning solo effort. Speaking on the try, Earl added;
“I think the ball popped out of the scrum as well, so I don’t know I managed that. I was just trying to get as wide as I could, and the next thing I knew, the try-line was below me, so I just reached out and touched down.
So I was buzzing, I think it’s my first try at Twickenham, so I was pretty pleased with that. It’s contributed to a winning cause, so yeah, really pleased.”
Despite how impressive Earl was in attack, the number eight had an equally significant contribution on the defensive side of the ball. The back-row but his body on the line time and again at the tackle, with England’s sharpened defence in part down to the influence of new-coming coach Felix Jones.
“Fordy (George Ford) and I were just joking there, that our defence is meant to get the ball back quickly.
“So maybe there’s something to look at in that regard. But when you play international rugby you’re going to go up against teams that have purple patches against you, and we were really pleased with how we stuck in it.
“Our collisions were markedly improved from the week before, our second actions around the breakdown, I’d be surprised if Wales had much quick ball in terms of non competed breakdowns. So it’s a mindset thing, and again, it was never going to happen overnight.
“Last week was a step in the right direction, this was another step in the right direction. So who knows where we can take it.”
Pivoting once more to focus on the upcoming clash with Scotland, Earl recognises the talented threats that Townsend has at his disposal. There is no denying the talents that the likes of Finn Russell, Blair Kinghorn and Darcy Graham bring to the Scottish back-line, and Earl is ready for his side to test their metal, against some of the top backs in test match rugby.
“So you go, ‘look, we’re going to go back to our fundamentals in terms of what we’re going after in defence, and if we get stung we get stung, and we’ll go harder next time’.
“Murrayfield’s a really hard place to go, they’ve got threats all over the pitch.”
“So in a way that kind of frees us up, and we’ll look forward to preparing to play against someone like him (Finn Russell), he’s one of the best players in the world, and those are the guys you want to play against.”
“Look, they’re a very proud rugby nation, they’ve got some great players, some great individuals. We’ve never had an easy game, and last time we played them here, the first game last year, we lost. So we’ve got to right some wrongs, and we’re really looking forward to going up there.”