LONG READ Ben Earl: Reading obsession, NRL dreams and why he 'doesn't care' if fans dislike his celebrations

Ben Earl’s North London home is gasping beneath the weight of books. He’s flung up shelves everywhere to nourish his obsession with reading. The tomes range from more predictable sports biographies to murder mystery, classic novels and thought-provoking non-fiction. Earl holds a degree in comparative literature and wrote his dissertation on Caribbean poetry. What was once a childhood hobby is now an escape from, to borrow Earl’s analogy, the ‘washing machine’ of professional rugby.

“I churn out a book every 10 days,” he says. “It’s a way of getting out your own head. It’s a passion. I’ve got hundreds and hundreds of books. My Mrs is trying to move them all away but I’ve got nowhere else to put them so they have to stay.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Ben Earl (@benearl7)

“I’m currently reading a book called Flash Boys. It’s about the shift from Wall St to electronic trading. As I’m getting a little less green, I’m starting to think about life after rugby and it’s looking something city-based. Commodities trading has caught my eye. I’ve been talking to a few people around getting into offices, having an understanding of the terms. I also find it really interesting with the financial crises over the last 10-20 years. But I flick between anything. I was reading a biography on Tiger Woods the week before, and then something by Robert Harris before that. I love reading.”

Earl’s father, David, is a former solicitor who passed the bookworm bug on to his sons. David and his wife, Belinda, were something of a power couple back home in Kent. Belinda rose from a Saturday job at Debenham’s aged 16 to the retail giant’s chief executive two decades later. At 39, she was the youngest-ever female FTSE 500 CEO and was awarded an OBE in 2017.

“When I was younger, I had no idea about some of the stuff she was going through,” Earl says. “The stresses of managing those companies, dealing with shareholders, big sales, acquisitions, redundancies. To come home and be so consistent as a mum, still come to rugby on a Sunday when she had a million calls to make. As I got older, I’ve appreciated what she and my dad did more.

I remember the first time I told Mum I wanted to be a rugby player and it didn’t go down too well.

“They were so good at separating work from family or work from play. I’ve not got a family yet but I’m very much of the mindset the moment you leave the workspace, you leave work there otherwise it takes over your life. And that striving for excellence, pushing boundaries, Mum was one of the first females to do that. That has always been instilled in me, that high performance.”

Neither Belinda nor David were euphoric when 18-year-old Earl announced his intention to make a career of rugby. Not because they didn’t approve, or because they’d put him through two prestigious schools at serious expense and preferred him to train as a neurosurgeon or businessman or some other high-achieving pursuit. They were concerned about the stability of professional sport. If he was going to play for Saracens, Earl would also have to earn a degree.

“I remember the first time I told Mum I wanted to be a rugby player and it didn’t go down too well. They didn’t know what the craic was. Now they come to every game.

“I told them this was something I really wanted to do. They said, ‘look, we’ve put a lot of effort and time into you being in the right school and we would hate for you to waste it by focusing too much on the rugby’. Part of the bargain was, if I was lucky enough to get a contract, I had to go to uni. I had to juggle and balance studying full-time in London and training at Sarries for three years.

“I’m very grateful they pushed me in that way as well as letting me enjoy my rugby without putting pressure on me. The only time my dad has ever spoken to me in a game, I was about 16, it was pouring rain in Leatherhead and we were getting beaten so comfortably. He said, ‘I haven’t come all this way to stand in the rain and watch you play like a d**k so buck your ideas up’. They just wanted me to enjoy what I was doing, and they are pleased they did what they did so I can be sitting here talking to you.”

Earl had been hot property at Saracens for a while before stepping up to the first team. He was talented and he knew it. When the time came to enter the lair of legends, Earl didn’t skip a beat. A little cocksure, he plonked his bag down between Richard Wigglesworth and Chris Ashton, two of the most exacting standard-setters and decorated players England has seen.

I’ve always spoken about why I celebrate it in terms of what it gives me and what I hope it gives the team. Maybe 70% of people dislike it. I don’t really care, frankly, because I’m not doing it for them.

“Once you are with the first team, you’re literally not allowed to stay in the academy changing room, you have got to go and ask if you can join the senior ones. I just went up to Wigg and Ashy and said, ‘can I go in your changing room please?’ They said ‘yeah, yeah, of course’. I dropped my bags in on the first day of pre-season and kept finding them back in the corridor. I kept persisting and I am still in that changing room – now I am the oldest in there.

“I probably was too sure of myself and that has been well written about. Boarding school stood me in good stead for Sarries when you go from quite a sheltered upbringing – I don’t mind saying that – to rubbing shoulders with some of the greats of the game. The reason they are so successful is how much they care about the club and person in making sure nothing comes easy.”

Was the change in dynamic a shock? “As much as I enjoyed my time at school, you become a very big fish in a very small pond. You think you’ll turn up and play for Sarries from week one, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Sarries were the best team in Europe if not the world at the time. But you get that, I don’t want to say beaten out of you, but the best thing about Sarries is the way to earn respect is training unbelievably hard, being humble enough to realise you have work to do. That was what I set my stall out to do.”

There’s a curious dichotomy between an athlete’s persona on the pitch and their true selves away from it. Confrontation and snarl are hard-baked into rugby players. The sport demands courage and caters to machismo. The intensity in how they perform can fuel unfair perceptions about the people they really are.

Earl has been widely pilloried for his celebrations, the raucous shouts when his team wins a turnover, his pack milks a scrum penalty or an opponent cracks under pressure and spills the payload. Sometimes, he admits, they have gone too far. Whooping and knee-sliding after a crooked Irish lineout throw got him slaughtered. Particularly when England were seen off 29-10. YouTuber Andrew Forde compiled a video of Earl’s celebrations alone which filled four minutes. But they remain a central part of how he plays the game.

“I’ve gone through a journey with them. Times I definitely got the balance wrong. Everyone laughs about that not-straight in Ireland. I’ve always spoken about why I do it in terms of what it gives me and what I hope it gives the team. Maybe 70% of people dislike it. I don’t really care, frankly, because I’m not doing it for them. You can always tell some people might do it for a different reason. I’m honestly doing it for me and my team.”

If someone said, ‘what would be your one regret?’ it would probably be not giving rugby league a go at one point.

To begin with, the celebrations were a mental reset for Earl, whose mind could drift from the battle raging around him. In his younger days, he was criticised for flitting in and out of matches.

“I used to really struggle being 100% engaged throughout a game which is crazy when you think about it because the ball is only in play around 37-38 minutes. Concentration was a big work-on for me and that was a really good way of staying concentrated in looking for things to enjoy and celebrate.

“As I’ve got older, it’s twofold: I want to be infectious for my teammates. At Sarries we are a younger team, a team that needs to be told things are going well. And I genuinely enjoy competing. Since I played for England a little more, you spend time away from the club and come back, it’s very easy to drift through club games to get to an international block again. But I want to re-emphasise to myself and others the only reason I am the player I am, is from everything the club has given me.”

Unsurprisingly, Earl is a sports fanatic. Golf and snooker are two great passions. He talks wistfully about union’s sister code and whether he’ll have the chance to realise a deep-rooted dream in the NRL. He’s a big Canberra Raiders fan and on tour with the Lions last year, met Ricky Stuart, the team’s coach and hall of famer. At 28, and with a contract at Saracens for three more years, he concedes time is not on his side.

“I’m probably too old now. I love league, I watch more league than union but I don’t really know the ins and outs. I’m on every fantasy and every tipping competition. I’m a massive student of the game and picking people’s brains all the time. I would have loved to do it. If someone said, ‘what would be your one regret?’ it would probably be not giving it a go at one point.

“I stay in touch with a few coaches out there and it’s always been, ‘What’s your situation?’ At the moment I am fully committed to playing for England and Saracens until a certain point. If I got to 30 and felt I couldn’t contribute anymore or needed a change of tack I’d love to get down there, but if union is a young man’s game, then league is a very young man’s game. I don’t think so.”

Earl is pensive, too, about his turbulent voyage in an England shirt. This past year has given him cause for reflection, since he became a Test Lion and a 50-cap international. He reckons it took four years to feel truly comfortable in the elite arena.

“Henry Pollock would be one who is ready to jump straight in and he’s great. For some it takes a little bit longer. Test rugby isn’t for everyone. It’s sometimes a different sport to club rugby because of the nature of how games are played. It’s not how you win, it’s getting it done.

“My England journey until quite recently was a bit complicated. Since making my debut in 2020 at Murrayfield, probably for my first year I didn’t realise what it took to actually play for England. I probably treated it like a club game. International rugby is frankly different in terms of the emotional buy-in, preparation, expectation, commitment – everything is heightened. Looking back on it now, I’m so glad I got capped and I wouldn’t change my journey but I probably wasn’t ready. I felt like I was but I had so much to learn. It did accelerate my learning but also some hardships I hadn’t experienced in my career.”

We know when we play our best stuff we can beat anyone but when we are 1% or 2% off, we’ve had those lessons handed to us over the past two months – we can lose to anyone.

Indeed, for more than two years, Earl went without a cap, marooned on the 13 he had won in an early-career burst. Eddie Jones left him out in the cold and wondering if he’d ever find his way back. Steve Borthwick did not pick him for his first squad as England coach. By that time, Earl had attacked his craft. He was player of the year in a team which lost the Prem final to Borthwick’s Leicester and Freddie Burns’ drop-goal, then reclaimed England’s crown the following summer. Injuries in the back-row and a ban for Billy Vunipola hoisted Earl up the pecking order. He has entrenched himself in the England back-row ever since.

“What was the moment I felt the penny dropped? Probably after the Six Nations in 2024,” he reflects. “The World Cup was great but I was running on a high, that team played very well, and the Six Nations afterwards when we’d lost Owen Farrell, Courtney Lawes and others, new coaches had come in, that was the tournament where I felt ‘now I can play at this level’. There have been wobbles, but I haven’t looked back.”

Those tremors have been more collective in nature than individual. Earl performed well in a maddening England side which lurched to its poorest Six Nations on record.

“Incredibly disappointing,” is Earl’s verdict. “It was gutting. We didn’t play well enough to warrant being close to being favourites. But that being said, if you compare the Ireland performance to the France performance, there was a team that had improved.

“It felt like we have wiped the slate clean because we have shown every side of us. We back ourselves against anyone. We know when we play our best stuff we can beat anyone but when we are 1% or 2% off, we’ve had those lessons handed to us over the past two months – we can lose to anyone. You mature very quickly when you lose and we’ve had a bit of loss over the last six months. It’ll be a big journey for us.”

Through all of the strife, Saracens has been Earl’s sanctuary. Not that their domestic form has provided much solitude. The English giants are in a state of transition; key men leaving, club icons growing longer in the tooth and that prolific team-builder and trophy-winner, Mark McCall, departing in the summer. Sunday’s record thrashing of Sale was a reminder of their ruthless edge. More importantly, it moved them within nine points of the play-offs with fixtures against three of the top five to come.

“There has definitely been less column inches on us than other teams and when there has been, it’s been we’re ‘done and dusted’ and need a change of face,” Earl says. “We’ve got a load of stuff to be really motivated about.

“Whatever happens at the end of the season there’ll be moments we won’t be happy with. We let opportunities slip. If you were to end the league tomorrow it would be a fair reflection of what we’ve been as a team – up and down – but the nature of the top four is you’ve just got to sneak in.

We are so freed up because we know no-one gives us a chance, but we also know no-one will want to play us in a do-or-die game.

“We’re quite happy with no-one speaking about us. We are so freed up because we know no-one gives us a chance, but we also know no-one will want to play us in a do-or-die game.

“Sunday felt like a culmination of a few good but not quite good enough performances. The way we played is the way we’ve been training. We are trending in completely the right direction. All I’d say is watch this space.”

A resurgent Saracens, ascending the throne from the longest way back, as game-breakers depart and McCall makes his last stand? Amidst all the thrillers on Earl’s bookshelves, that would be a story worth reading.