Owen Farrell faces up to England criticism as two of his best mates are dropped

Owen Farrell has faced up to the flak flying his way – and refused to be brought down by it.

England’s captain has been criticised for his game, his leadership, even his post-match interview, since defeat in Wales ended his team’s Six Nations hopes.

Jamie George and Elliot Daly, two of his best mates, have paid the price for the loss by being dropped along with Jonny Hill for the clash with France tomorrow.

And team boss Eddie Jones revealed he had gone so far as to create training sessions specifically designed to teach his indisciplined players to cope better with on-field setbacks.

“A lot of people have had their say and that’s fair enough,” said Farrell. “I understand people have opinions. That’s fine.

“Whether it matters to us or not is another thing. We are obviously going through a process of how to get the best out of ourselves and that’s more what we are focused on.

“I don’t think I dwell on it [the scrutiny]. You soon come to realise what’s important and how you learn from things and take them going forward and put everything into the next thing.

“If you hold on to things for too long you take your eye off what’s actually going on now and what you can do in preparation for this game.”

World Cup winners Lawrence Dallaglio and Paul Grayson believe England would be better off led by a forward rather than the fly-half.

Even Jones admits Farrell “can improve in the way he leads the team”, though he adds that, frankly, the whole operation is “open to that sort of scrutiny” just now.

With that in mind Jones has had top refs Wayne Barnes and Matt Carley officiate England sessions this week.

Jones described their input as “enlightening” for a team which has conceded 42 penalties in three games.

“Whenever good teams go through a run like this it is never a lack of effort,” he said. “It is handling the disappointment of the game that is the most important thing.

“We have tried to create training sessions to replicate what might be termed a ‘disappointment’ in the game, – like a bad call by the referee – to elicit a response and practise not losing our focus.”

Andrew Brace, who took charge of England’s dismal home loss to Scotland last month, is back in charge at Twickenham tomorrow.

In a thinly veiled swipe at Pascal Gauzere, who wrongly allowed two Wales tries a fortnight ago, Jones said he was “hopeful” Brace would enforce the laws “as the law book states”.

First and foremost England need to put their own house in order, to which end Jones has made three changes, with Max Malins, Luke Cowan-Dickie and Charlie Ewels coming in at fullback, hooker and lock respectively.

France have not won at Twickenham in the Six Nations since 2005. In all that time they have not had a better team than they do now.

FABIEN GALTHIE named his strongest possible France team for Le Crunch then insisted he was not guilty of breaching Covid protocols.

Les Bleus’ game with Scotland last month was postponed after head coach Galthie and 12 players tested positive for the virus.

Fingers were pointed at him as the possible source of the outbreak for leaving the squad’s bubble to watch his son play rugby.

But Galthie rejected the criticism after recalling his stars to face England, including centre Virimi Vakatawa, captain Charles Ollivon and scrum-half Antoine Dupont.

He said: “All my actions, all our actions, were in compliance with the sanitary protocol.”

French sports minister Roxana Maracineanu initially threatened to withdraw the team from the tournament, but the government backed down after an investigation cleared Les Bleus of wrongdoing.

Six Nations boss Ben Morel has denied that agreeing a £365million deal with a private equity firm signals an end to the Championship being broadcast on free-to-air channels.

Organisers confirmed that 14.3 per cent of the tournament’s commercial rights had been sold to CVC.

The money will be split on a sliding scale between the cash-strapped unions with the RFU, who expected to register a loss of £30-35 million this financial year, pocketing £95m.

Crucially, the six unions will retain “sole responsibility for all sporting matters as well as majority control of commercial decisions” and Morel insists this includes TV rights.

He said: “Any decision over free-to-air, moving to pay… those decisions will remain in the power of the unions.

“The unions will have to make that thoughtful, long-term decision about what is in the best interests of the game.”

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