Owen Farrell was born to lead England – just don’t expect him to talk about it

As the All Blacks have discovered, Eddie Jones has cultivated a captain who will only retreat from a camera lens

Gareth Thomas tells it like this. It was Saturday 16 March 2013, the last weekend of the Six Nations, and England were playing Wales in Cardiff. England had won four Tests straight, so the grand slam was on the line. Thomas had not played a rugby union Test for six years, but after playing 103 of them he knew as well as anyone what it took to win the big games. And as he watched England warm up, he could see they didn’t have it. “I looked at England’s so-called match-winners, like Owen Farrell, and saw a bunch of boys,” he wrote later. “Their game faces were on, but I saw something else in their eyes, they weren’t prepared.” England lost, 30-3.

Six years, seven months later, and it is the World Cup semi-final at the International Stadium in Yokohama. The All Blacks, back-to-back world champions, have gathered into a pyramid to start the haka. In response, England have split into a V, two diagonal lines of 11 leading back to Farrell, their captain, at the centre. The camera cut to him standing, hands on hips. And what did we see in his eyes then, as the director moved in for a close-up, but a man who knew, who felt, with complete and utter confidence that he and his team were ready for what was in front of them.

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