Saracens’ Ben Earl: ‘I can’t lie and say I haven’t given England some thought’

W hen Ben Earl won his first senior England cap in February 2020, coming on as a 66th-minute substitute in a 13-6 win at Murrayfield, it felt as if a new era was dawning. Here was an all-action back-rower who seemed to tick every box. Pace, power, tenacity at the breakdown, street-smarts around the park; those in the know stroked their chins and predicted a long and fruitful career in white.

Of course, this hasn’t materialised. He was frozen out by Eddie Jones after playing just 90 minutes across the 2021 Six Nations. And even though he was rightly recognised as the Premiership’s player of the year last season, he’s so far failed to win over Steve Borthwick.

“Selfishly, the elephant in the room is that I wish I could have played a bit more for England in that Six Nations campaign,” Earl says when asked to sum up the past 12 months. “For whatever reason, I didn’t, and I’ve learned a lot from that. But I feel that I have contributed as much as I could have done here.”

He’s talking about Saracens, who will compete for a sixth Premiership title when they play Sale on Saturday at Twickenham. Earl knows that another big show in the grandest game in English club rugby will go a long way.

Of his desire to represent his country, he says: “I can’t lie and say that I haven’t been giving it some thought, but the moment that you stop performing, you give someone an easy reason not to pick you. You look at how competitive my position is – it always feels that the person who slips up first is going to be the one that misses out.

“The magic of this place is that it’s very aligned with what Steve wants and he just wants us to make the best of ourselves. He probably looks at games like this weekend and wants people that win stuff, so