Another round of URC action played out as a precursor to the eagerly anticipated European Cup that gets under way this weekend.
Owen Farrell will captain Saracens in their opening fixture against the Bulls on Saturday evening, should he recover from a knee injury.
However, his knee injury is the least of his worries, stepping away from international duty for the immediate future, citing the mental wellbeing of himself and his family.
At 32 years of age, Owen Farrell has six British and Irish Lions appearances, 112 English caps with over 1,200 points scored and 237 appearances with Saracens, amassing over 2,600 points.
He's a generational player, captain and leader. Farrell is somewhat of an alpha male, standing at 6ft 2in and over 90kg. He’s not shy on the rugby pitch either.
You would think that someone with those stats would be a homegrown hero, yet Farrell is walking away from international rugby, a decision that he has made for his own wellbeing.
He should be entering into the twilight years of his career, and English rugby should be trying to maximise their exposure to his leadership and experience to bridge the gap to the next World Cup.
Farrell has grown up with a greater advantage than most other rugby players.
His dad, Andy, is a rugby league hero, the youngest player to win a Challenge Cup, international at 18 and the youngest captain of Great Britain at just 21 years of age.
Andy switched codes and became an English international in rugby union, has coached England and more recently won the coach of the year in 2023 as Ireland head coach.
This family has vast experience in the limelight. With that comes exposure to public opinion, but that has been the way for the Farrells for a long time.
I remember watching Saracens playing against Munster and Owen Farrell’s competitive nature was something that annoyed opposition fans.
However, as the years went on, my respect and admiration for Farrell grew astronomically.
He’s a player that you try to dislike because of his effectiveness for teams that you don’t follow, Saracens and England. Yet, as his career went on, that dislike turned to complete respect because of how good he is in his position as an out-half, inside centre or as a leader of his team.
Farrell has made mistakes, everyone has.
A part of the disdain that some people have for him stems from his tackle technique, some of which weren’t sanctioned heavily enough to appease the general rugby-watching public.
It’s understandable to have a gripe with some of his high tackles, but why does the abuse become so personal? You can dislike the action without abusing the person.
Another aspect that caused public outrage was the Saracens salary cap and Farrell’s involvement in co-investments with Nigel Wray, the chairman at the heart of the scandal.
Punishment followed and the Saracens players took their medicine, playing in the English Championship. Not many of us had any love for Saracens or their players at that time, but to stay together and rehabilitate the club as a group was commendable.
With all that has gone on throughout Farrell’s career, a very small percentage of it can be viewed as errors.
Yet he seems to be punished a lot more unfairly than others. For a guy with his talent, mental resolve and leadership, and family background being an obvious advantage to his understanding of professional sportsmanship, he has still been damaged by the sport.
If someone in his position doesn’t have the tools to deal with the pressure on current top-level professionals, then it leaves little hope for anyone else.
He’s not the only one being hindered by the negative response of the rugby public. Wayne Barnes and Tom Foley, who yesterday announced he was taking a break from officiating at Test level, have both been quite heavily abused as part of their role in officiating the game.
Many other players and officials have been in that position as well.
Luckily, in my short and non-comparative career to Owen Farrell’s, I wasn’t abused to that degree.
I did, however, naively come across a tweet about myself when scrolling casually one day.
The rumours were that I had been in talks to move to Pau, along with Simon Mannix. It was totally untrue, it wasn’t even a case of having discussions to strengthen my position at home.
I was in the academy with Munster and never so much as thought about moving anywhere else so I had no part to play in it.
Yet I decided to read the only reply to the tweet in my naivety, which stated that I was no loss to Munster.
There was an instant sinking feeling in my stomach and regret for even bothering to keep scrolling. I hadn’t asked for the attention and wasn’t developed enough as a player to defend the sentiment.
I wasn’t even curious enough to search for the news, I innocently stumbled across it. It was a good lesson to learn early on, stay away from anything that might involve your name on public forums.
For a start, you don’t know who it is and how informed their opinion is, but it still hurts.
Can you imagine increasing that attention by many, many multiples. Owen Farrell has been through many ups and some downs in his career. There’s a lot more content out there for him.
I can only imagine that he ignores it too, but there’s only so much you can live your normal life while not being exposed to online or in-person abuse.
He has also expressed concern over the mental wellbeing of his family. They’re the ones sitting in the stands listening to these opinions first-hand.
I went to a European Cup game as a Munster academy player, and sat in the stand with my family, where other players families would also be randomly assigned to seats.
A player, who was a real fan favourite, made an error on the pitch and a supporter stood up to shout something abusive in his direction.
Because of my involvement, I knew that the player's family were sitting well within earshot of the supporter and it struck me how human these top-level players are behind it all.
His family had to listen to the abuse being directed at him, despite his heroics in the jersey on other European occasions.
It’s a fickle world and a difficult job to undertake, despite the clear perks and generous payment (for a relatively short period of time).
Two other team-mates were booed by their own supporters, in a similar fashion to Owen Farrell.
I’m confident that we’ve all criticised players, officials and others involved in sport. Not everyone is that public or as harsh with comments but they still exist.
We believe that they’re so removed from us that our opinion doesn’t count, or that they’re so professional it’s like water off a duck’s back.
However, Owen Farrell stepping away from the international game is evidence that the game is too heavily scrutinised in the current environment. Easy access to social media and public exposure to all opinions has exacerbated the problem.
There will always be actions in games that split public opinion.
Criticism is part of professional sport, but we must ensure that it doesn’t become a personal bashing of individuals and we must all try harder to focus on the positives in the game.
Watch Munster v Bayonne in the Champions Cup on Saturday from 4.45pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on www.rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app or listen to commentary on RTÉ Radio 1
