Owen Farrell: Saracens boss Mark McCall hails England captain following Premiership return
Owen Farrell made his injury comeback in Saracens’ 27-23 win over Bristol Bears and director of rugby Mark McCall was pleased with the England star’s outing.
This was Farrell‘s first appearance in four months but the fly-half played well and provided 12 points from the tee for the home side before leaving the game late on for a head injury assessment.
Following the narrow victory, McCall confessed that he was not best pleased with Saracens’ overall performance in their home-away-from-home game at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and suggested that his club captain will only improve with time.
McCall said: “He [Farrell] was at the heart of it, he place-kicked very well, he ran the attack brilliantly and I thought he defended well during the game.
Room to grow
“I’m delighted with him and he’ll just get better from here. His best games will be ahead of him, but he was pretty good today.
“We’re obviously really thrilled to get four points and a win from today, but not thrilled with the performance.
“I thought it was an exciting game, but not the kind of exciting game we want it to be or part of, to be honest.
“We were poor defensively today and a lot of credit to Bristol for the problems they caused us, but I thought we did show a lot of resilience in the game to keep coming back and score two important tries either side of half-time.
“With the ball, we were pretty good but without the ball, we weren’t so good.”
The match was level at 20-20 at half after Bristol tries from Antoine Frisch, Piers O’Conor and Tiff Eden were met by scores from Max Malins and Elliot Daly by the hosts with Farrell slotting two penalties in.
After the break, Malins grabbed his second to give his side the advantage and ensure that Callum Sheedy‘s penalty provided nothing more than a mere scratch on their lead, which remained until the final whistle after Jack Bates’ try was struck off for a forward pass.
Bristol Bears director of rugby Pat Lam said: “It was a great game, a really enjoyable game.
“I had an inkling that it [Bates’ try] was forward, and it was, and I feel for Joycey (Joe Joyce) – he was distraught.
“He did an unbelievable job to get into that position anyway – for a second-rower after 80 minutes, what he did to get there and create the opportunity.
“Joe was obviously upset about it, but it would have been class; two Bristolian boys, him and Jack Bates, who I thought was outstanding.
“He justified his selection, with all the good options we have out there, and he did tremendously well.
“It would have been five points and a great way to finish the game, but I’m proud of the guys.
“We had a clear game plan on how we wanted to play this. We put a lot of work into it.”