Scotland vs England preview: Double act of faith in George Ford and Owen Farrell

The old friends and rivals are delighted by a rare chance to line up side by side at Murrayfield – but, asks Chris Hewett, who will get goal-kicking duties?

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Four months ago, shortly after England had smashed the land speed record for a team heading out of their own World Cup, a bitterly disappointed George Ford indicated that he might take things a step further by breaking the sound barrier in his rush to reacquaint himself with his colleagues at club level. “I love being here,” he remarked before leaving the red-rose base in Surrey, “but I love going back to Bath. Everyone loves the upbeat environment there. Everyone loves the way we play.” Pointed? You could say.

Some sanctuary Bath turned out to be. Since returning to the Recreation Ground, the outside-half has played 11 games and finished second in eight of them. When he headed back up the M4 for the start of the Six Nations camp last month, he may well have driven even faster than he did in the opposite direction last October.

Yet it is obvious to all rugby followers blessed with the gift of sight that he is too rich a talent not to know which way to turn for the best. Most importantly of all, it is obvious to Eddie Jones – the only man who really counts in the England set-up, having replaced Stuart Lancaster as head coach shortly before Christmas. Jones could easily have kept the ruggedly ruthless Owen Farrell in the No 10 shirt for the Calcutta Cup set-to with Scotland, or given the celebrity midfielder Danny Cipriani a shot at redemption. Instead, he has placed his trust in the Boy Wonder and asked Farrell to operate as his batman.

Well… not quite. By recasting Farrell in the inside-centre role he performed so successfully when playing outside his long-time friend, schoolmate and near neighbour Ford at age-group level, Jones believes he has found a way of allowing England to function profitably in the key decision-making area of the team in the absence of two midfielders who have caught his eye in absentia: Henry Slade, the elegant playmaker from Exeter, and Manu Tuilagi, the human bowling ball from Leicester. In short, he is giving both Ford and Farrell equal weight, as game-shapers, option-takers and perhaps – we shall know soon enough – as goal-kickers.

Neither Ford nor Farrell would shine a light on the dark mystery surrounding England’s plans on the marksmanship front. Before flying north to Edinburgh, they attempted to convince their audience that the call would be made purely on the strength of an eve-of-match practice session at Murrayfield. If you believe that, you’ll believe anything. It is inconceivable that a micro-manager as punishingly precise as Jones would head into an important championship match without knowing who might be taking the first shot at goal.

But away from the kicking duties, both players seemed wholly comfortable with the first selection outcome under the new regime. Farrell, by some way the more reluctant public speaker of the two, pronounced himself more than ready to shoulder the burden of the vice-captaincy – or, to be strictly accurate, one-third of the vice-captaincy – and gave the impression of relishing his enhanced position in the red-rose hierarchy.

“I’ve played all of my rugby at 10 or 12, so that makes you a leader straight away,” said the 24-year-old from Wigan, who has been asked to run the defensive operation for good measure. “I’ve been doing this kind of thing since I was a kid, so maybe that side of my game has shown up a little bit in camp. Everyone talks about style, but while there are different ways of playing this game, it’s all about decision-making when you come down to it. Rugby presents you with different pictures every time you look up, so you have to make the right choices.”

Ford, meanwhile, argued that while “you always want to be controlling things as a No 10”, there was an obvious benefit to having Farrell operating alongside him, unshaven cheek by jutting jowl. “That’s a luxury for me,” he said. “You want someone with you who is equipped to help out, and Owen has all the skills and experience to do that.”

During his glory days as the pivot of the England team, a chap by the name of Wilkinson had the perfect aide-de-camp in Will Greenwood. Funnily enough, Jonny-boy has been back on the red-rose scene this week, putting both Ford and Farrell through their paces off the kicking tee and dispensing advice on the full range of midfield issues.


 England coach Eddie Jones
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“It’s been great: we’ve had two or three short, sharp sessions, all of them high on energy and really informative,” Ford said. Short? Sharp? Are we talking about the same Wilkinson? “Actually,” admitted the 22-year-old from Oldham, after due reflection, “he seemed to have been out there a while by the time we turned up. Yes, he was kicking when we arrived. When he played, he practised and practised. He still practises now, and it rubs off on you.” Did the old magic still appear to be there, in all its glory? “It did,” the youngster confirmed, in a tone of deepest respect, tinged with bemusement that one man could work so much harder than everyone else.

Nobody apart from Jones knows how the England midfield will look in 12 months’ time, when France visit Twickenham on the opening weekend of the 2017 tournament. It may even be that the coach knows as little as the rest of us. There is a school of thought that Slade is his full-time No 10 in waiting and that Tuilagi will form a new centre partnership with the as yet uncapped Elliot Daly of Wasps. But that theory rather depends on Ford and Farrell coming up short.

If Ford is not a great one for shouting the odds, he does not appear to consider this a likelihood – and you can be damned sure that Farrell doesn’t either. “We’re both really excited by this opportunity,” the younger man said. “Two guys who think similarly about the game, linking up together and helping each other out as we have done in the past. After the disappointment of the World Cup, this is a chance we want to take.”