England v Scotland: Owen Farrell v Finn Russell in Calcutta Cup in Six Nations

“He tries to pretend that he doesn’t care sometimes, puts a show on for the boys, but he cares. He really cares. If you go to his room, he is always there doing his analysis, studying the opposition on the laptop.”

Farrell has never given the impression he doesn’t care. Rugby, league and union, has long been the family business. Owen made his Saracens debut at 17, replacing his father Andy, a code-crossing legend.

Business? For Russell, rugby is pleasure.

At the same time Farrell was playing in Premiership finals, Russell, a year younger, was in a shed near Stirling.

Russell spent three years there, chiselling out windowsills and fire places as a stonemason. He read about the 2011 World Cup in the paper on his lunch break., external Four years later he was playing in one.

“He had done a job, he was a bit different to the lads straight out of private school,” said Wilson.

“A lot of people imagine him as this big, loud presence, but he is down to earth, doesn’t give it the big one about what he can do.”

Farrell doesn’t make such easy showreel fodder.

There have been sublime moments. Often at crucial times.

A cut-out pass through the eye of a needle for Jonny May’s score early in 2019’s win over Ireland was one.

A long-range bullet to send Elliot Daly scampering round Alex Cuthbert in the 2017 heist at the Millennium Stadium was another.

But Farrell’s influence comes more from a lifetime’s dedication rather than split-second genius.

His standards are stratospheric. His commitment total. His tolerance for anything less? Zero.

You see it in snippets.

His team-talks are short sentences, long pauses and bulge-eyed stares.

“Put yourselves in a position today to be brutal,” he said before beating Australia in Japan. “Punish them with good decisions,” he said before the win over New Zealand.

You hear it in his team-mates’ words.

“A competitor,” said winger May this week. “He wants to compete every day, he drives standards, he’s a leader, that pretty much sums it up.”

Most of all, you see it on the field. Farrell’s focus over a place-kick, his appetite for contact, the intensity that can slip into reckless physicality.

Brad Barritt knows Farrell well. He joined Saracens a month after Farrell’s debut in 2008. The pair won their first England caps together against Scotland in 2012.