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After the British & Irish Lions failed to complete the clean sweep they were seeking in Sydney, the head coach, Andy Farrell, conceded it might take one or two beers before his players felt a sense of pride in their achievements. For Ben Earl, you sense it did not take as long as that.
Earl gave a glowing endorsement of his first Lions tour – he appeared as a replacement in the first and third Tests – passionately expressing the hope he features on the next one and explaining why he returns to Saracens and England a much-improved player. The key, according to the 27-year-old back-rower, is essentially to go with the flow.
He cites as an example that on the way to the stadium last Saturday the door on the team bus became jammed and as a result the Lions had to decamp to another. In other, more highly strung environments, disruption like that can have a derailing effect, but Earl’s eyes have been opened to a world where not everything has to be perfect or prescriptive. To that end, it was instructive to hear he has spoken to England colleagues about bringing a similar attitude when they reconvene in October.
“Just get out of your own way,” he says. “You can overthink this sport so much but when you’ve got a game on Saturday, then you’ve got to play again on Tuesday or Wednesday, you’re not going to be able to do every rep, review everything opposition. Get out of your own way and just play rugby.
“It’s almost like you get to the pinnacle of our sport – this is what it is – and you’re back playing under-12s on a Sunday morning. There’s no preparation, you just go out, you have a plan, you try to implement it, you express yourself in a way Andy and the rest of the coaching staff have allowed us to do and I’ve loved every minute of it.
“It’s been a life-changing experience, the highlight of my life, certainly my rugby-playing life. I’ve made friends for life, memories for life. It showed me something completely different in terms of the rugby side of things. I’ve loved it. It has been completely transformative for me and I’m a far better player because of it.
“I’ve spoken to fellow Englishmen that there’s some cool stuff we can bring back to camp and that’s sort of the whole point, isn’t it? We can come back and say, ‘there are some bits we’ve done here that work when we have time away or during campaigns’.
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“I’m almost excited to get going again. I need my time off, but I’m almost excited to get back into certain environments to be like, ‘have you thought about this?’.”
Earl is equally effusive about Farrell’s coaching style. The Ireland head coach led the Lions to a first series win in 12 years on his first tour in the top job. “He has made me fully believe in how good I am,” says Earl. “Every time he talks to the group, I’m like, I’ll do anything for that man, I’m ready to play. Even when I’m not playing. Every time he spoke to the group, I’m like, when the time comes, I’m ready to play for this bloke.”
What of Farrell junior’s England future? In the second Test, in Melbourne, Owen won his first international cap since the 2023 World Cup and having returned to join Earl at Saracens he is eligible to play for England again. “I love playing with him, every time I take the pitch with Owen, I think ‘we’re going to win’,” says Earl. “That’s his best quality.
“It’s not up to me [if he plays for England again]. There are too many moving parts for me to comment on that. The more times I can take the field with that bloke, the better, let me put it that way.”
