By Mitch Phillips
LILLE, France (Reuters) – George Ford and Owen Farrell have known each other since they were kids playing rugby league in Wigan and spend endless hours together discussing rugby union, but they say their partnership for England is much more about instinct than planning.
Ford is back at flyhalf to face Samoa on Saturday with Farrell moving to inside centre in a pairing that was for a long time the go-to of former coach Eddie Jones but which hasn’t happened since the 2021 Six Nations.
Their first test together was against Samoa, in 2014, and they have lined up as 10 and 12 40 times. In the last two years, however, Ford’s absence through injury, Jones losing faith in him and the arrival of Marcus Smith meant the partnership that was so effective in the 2019 World Cup has been in mothballs.
“It’s exciting, we’ve obviously done it many times before and had some real success with it in the past,” Ford told reporters on Thursday.
“Owen is another voice in terms of when we want to move the ball, distribute the ball, which hopefully leads to some try scoring opportunities for us at the weekend.”
SWITCH ROLES
Asked how much they plan how and when to switch roles during the game, Ford said it was a “feel and awareness thing” that should not be too or structured.
“You just want to be flexible and that’s the thing about playing together so many times. Sometimes it’s not even communication, it might just be a bit of eye contact,” he said.
“When Owen finds himself at first receiver that’s a trigger to go a bit further out and vice versa.”
Farrell took a similar view.
“We speak about everything rugby-wise anyway, regardless of what the team is,” he said. “We’re on the same page and we both hope we’ve kicked on since we’ve last played together.
“It’s interchangeable we can both do both jobs. It’s not too much of a pre-planned thing, it just kind of happens.”
Despite Ford’s brilliant goalkicking in the first two matches, coach Steve Borthwick has decided Farrell will take the kicks against Samoa.
That should mean he gets the two points he needs to overtake Jonny Wilkinson’s total of 1,179 to become England’s record pointscorer.
“It’s not something you like to give too much thought to before anything’s done,” Farrell said. “The one thing I will say is that it’s been an honour to have played for England as much as I have done to be in vicinity of that record.”
It was left to Ford to pay homage to his friend.
“It’s massive. For him to have that opportunity just shows the quality of the player he is and how consistent he’s been over time,” he said.
“He’s chasing down probably the best English 10 in history and he’s probably one kick away from surpassing that, which is incredible. All of the boys will be chuffed for him if and when he does it.”
(Reporting by Mitch Phillips, editing by Ed Osmond)
