Double dose of Farrell revives Hodgson hope

International return beckons for fly-half bedevilled by injury and poor form and he's thrilled to join clubmates at new-look England. By Hugh Godwin

Charlie Hodgson (left) shares a laugh with Owen Farrell at England’s training session in Leeds last week (Getty)

To the watching world agog at learning what vitality a father-and-son team might bring to England's wilting red rose, they are Andy and Owen Farrell – respectively an on-loan attack and backs coach and a putative debutant centre. To Charlie Hodgson, the venerable fly-half who has worked with both men every day during a mostly successful first season at Saracens, they are Big Faz and Young Faz. And in both cases, Hodgson has been impressed by what he has seen.

"Big Faz is very open, very honest, he tells you what he wants and he is very positive with how he delivers it," says the 31-year-old Hodgson, whose recall to the England squad after Jonny Wilkinson's retirement from Tests and Toby Flood's injury gives him the chance to win a 37th cap against Scotland on Saturday.

"With Young Faz, there's the mature head that he has on his shoulders. He understands the game very well, he knows what he wants. You can see a very, very determined streak which obviously has come down from his father. As a player he's got no fear really, he seems to relish every opportunity he gets."

The same goes for Saracens, too, through their 10 wins and a draw in the league this season, as well as finishing top of their Heineken Cup pool. It has carried on from last May's first Premiership title, when Farrell Snr was head coach and Farrell Jnr the teenaged fly-half who kicked the crucial points in the final before Hodgson's arrival from Sale in the summer.

"The big thing at Saracens is the positivity," says Hodgson. "A lot of teams can be guilty of just talking about working hard. At Saracens they really mean it."

And the new-look England will be hoping to tap into it, with Brad Barritt possibly completing a Sarries midfield trio to start at Murrayfield, while Matt Stevens and Mouritz Botha are in the front-five mix.

For the 36-year-old Farrell Snr, who is on secondment, it is the next coaching step after a playing career of multiple trophies and legendary leadership in rugby league and a rather less celebrated eight caps in union.

Hodgson identifies several aspects of league that are now common in the union code: "The lines of running, manipulating defences, putting pressure on one defender on his own. What I like most about league is that when line breaks happen, tries tend to be scored." All this can be seen in Saracens' unfussy, aggressive, counterattacking style.

As for his injury-fractured international career, Hodgson says he was at his happiest when Andy Robinson, now in charge of the Scots, was the England coach from 2004-06. "Andy was a very positive person, a good coach to be around. As players we had a lot of responsibility with what we were doing on the field."

And in more than a decade ofnational service Hodgson came to know every vicissitude of the Auld Enemy meetings in Edinburgh; from when he "came on for a minute to kick a conversion" during a comfortable win in 2002 to the windswept and sometimes rainy Scottish victories of 2006 and 2008.

Nevertheless, Hodgson has no qualms about the young Farrell being first-choice kicker, just as he is for Saracens. "Yes, that would continue, there's no reason to change," he says. "Regardless of what situation you put Owen in, he seems to relish it and just smash straight through it."

Hodgson cites New Zealand's Dan Carter and Aaron Mauger as players – pretty good ones, by the way – who began as Test centres before moving to fly-half. He says Farrell will "definitely" wear No 10 for England in due course. But Flood, who has a knee injury, may return soon, making the shorter term less certain. For now, Farrell's swapping in and out with Barritt in attack and defence has worked with Saracens, for whom Hodgson – whose defence with England was so often criticised – has been a revelation, flying up in the blitz.

"Maybe the beauty for Owen is that he's having that responsibility a bit further out," says Hodgson. "With all the chaos going on in front of you at fly-half, you're watching the ball and trying to organise people around you. He has a bit more time on the ball if he gets it, and he can almost step back and see what's going on, on the widest front. Because he understands the game well he makes good calls, and feeds information into me all the time."

Hodgson's voice of experience has been heard in the past week's England training camp near Leeds. So, too, those of those who have been invited to address the players, Kevin Sinfield of Leeds Rhinos and Gary Neville, late of Manchester United, emphasising the need for standards and a common purpose.

"The Rhinos shifted away from the drinking culture that they had to one of being honest and hard-working and a bit humble as well," says Hodgson. The lesson after England's World Cup last autumn is clear, although Hodgson will not comment directly as he was not there.

In fact he has never played in a World Cup, having missed 2003 and 2007 due to injury. Unlike most of this squad, he has little thought of the next one in 2015, either. Scotland on Saturday is about as far as Hodgson is thinking.