England’s best player at the Rugby World Cup hadn’t started a match for his country until a month before the tournament.
In fact, before the World Cup warmup games in August, Ben Earl was far from assured of being in the squad for France at all.
Earl, who was voted as the best player in the English league in 2022, was dropped from England’s squad midway through this year’s Six Nations and told by newly hired coach Steve Borthwick to go back to his Saracens club and get fitter.
Six months out from the World Cup and with Borthwick having plenty of options in the back row, Earl’s hopes of making it for the global showpiece looked slim.
Yet there he was on Sunday, capping a player-of-the-match showing against Fiji in the quarterfinals with a lung-busting 50-meter gallop upfield that set up a 72nd-minute drop goal by Owen Farrell which proved pivotal in nudging England into the semifinals.
“If you named a World XV at this time, he would be close to getting in it,” England defense coach Kevin Sinfield said this week of Earl.
Even if that’s an exaggeration for some, there’s no doubting the 25-year-old Earl’s immense contribution over the past six weeks and his sudden importance to England heading into the semifinal against South Africa on Saturday.
The stats say it all.
Most tackles by an England player? Earl, with 60.
Most runs made by an England player? Earl, with 48.
The second-most clean breaks by an England player? Earl, with five.
Earl, a center/winger as a schoolboy, has also beaten 17 defenders on his runs and invariably led meters gained in the quarterfinals, with 97.
Talk about being central to a team.
Maybe he learnt some lessons from his mother about perseverance.
At one time, Belinda Earl was the youngest chief executive of a FTSE500 retail company and, six years ago, was honored with an OBE for services to retail. She’d started out as an assistant in the menswear department of a local clothes store, working Saturdays at age 16.
Her son has had his challenges, too.
Like Eddie Jones, the predecessor to Borthwick, seemingly deciding that Earl wasn’t big enough to be a top-level international back-rower and overlooking him for the final 18 months of his reign.
Like Saracens getting relegated from England’s top division in 2020 for breaching salary-cap rules and Earl having to move to Bristol Bears on loan for a year to ease his club's financial burden.
Like getting within three matches of the (unwanted) record number of appearances as a replacement (18) before gaining a first start for England.
“We know that he has faced adversity before with England,” Sinfield said, “but he has certainly gone after it and he deserves everything that he gets.”
It’s quite the England-South Africa doubleheader on Saturday, with the two countries also facing off in a big group-stage match in the Cricket World Cup being held in India.
Earl will no doubt be keeping a close eye on that because cricket was his first love. He was a powerful left-handed batter who could also bowl a bit, and struck up a close friendship with current England opener Zak Crawley — from their time together at Tonbridge School — that remains to this day.
Aside from playing age-group cricket for Kent, he was a high-performing swimmer until the age of 13, third in the country at freestyle for his age group.
Rugby is where Earl made his name, though, after graduating from Queen Mary University in London with a degree in comparative literature. He scored a try on his first Premiership start and also has captained England Under-20s.
When he runs out against the Springboks, Earl will be making his 24th appearance for England. It is easily his biggest.
Another massive performance and others aside from Sinfield might be bigging him up.
And Earl believes there are plenty of top players in England’s team going under the radar.
“You see a lot of stuff on social media about world XVs and there’s probably not a huge amount of representation from England in that regard,” Earl has said. “A lot of people don’t think there’s that many of us in there.
“So these are the opportunities. These are the stages that we want to be involved in. You always want to be in those conversations.”
Just a few weeks ago, the conversations around Earl were about whether he was good enough to play for England at a World Cup.
No more.
“In moments when you need someone to pull something out of the hat,” England lock Ollie Chessum said, “Ben has been that person for us.”
___
AP Rugby World Cup: https://apnews.com/hub/rugby
