LONG READ Max Malins: 'I never really feel I played my best stuff for England and that time may have passed'

Max Malins didn’t feel nervous. He’d put in the groundwork. Exclusive use of a Majorcaroof terrace had been secured. An overzealous restaurant manager recruited as accomplice. Phone wedged in a plant pot to capture the momentous seconds he’d ask partner Ella to be his wife.

As the couple gazed out across the sunlit hills of the Balearic island, Malins plucked the diamond ring from his pocket and began what’s best described as a torturous descent to the ground. His right leg jolted as if struck by a cattle prod. His knee buckled like a rotten tree trunk. For a beat, it looked like Malins was bound, head over heels, for the concrete. When the video was uploaded to Instagram, the boys back at Saracens had a field day in the comments.

“I re-enacted it at home recently and my knee did exactly the same thing,” Malins says. “I just think my knees are shot. The reverse lunge is not my thing.”

The proposal had required careful planning and no little espionage. Ella has a large social media following but remains a private person, shaped perhaps by her days a young cast member on the reality TV show Made in Chelsea. Malins laid his scene on the terrace of La Residencia hotel, a beautiful vista overlooking the landscape and the restaurant beneath.

 

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“I had to organise to do it before service when I knew no-one would be in the restaurant. It wasn’t until an hour before the proposal when I went to see the spot the nerves started kicking in. This lady showed me up to this terrace like, ‘look how wonderfully we’ve done this, what do you think?’ There’s this guy laying down red and white petals and candles in a love heart shape. In my head I’m thinking ‘oh s**t, this is far too much’. Maybe let’s get rid of the candles and not have a love heart. I was on the floor sweeping the petals out of the love heart shape.”

The couple first connected close to four years ago through Instagram. Malins was a fan of the socialites TV programme. Ella knew nothing of rugby, but through her work in corporate finance, was invited to watch the 2023 Calcutta Cup match at Twickenham. Malins scored two tries. Ella was unmoved.

“I don’t think she even remembers that,” he says. “She does claim her eyesight was so bad, and I was on the wing on her side, that I was the only player she could see.

I look back and I never really feel like I played my best stuff for England. Lots of my game time came on the wing which I wouldn’t say is my natural position.

“She came with some of her colleagues. She was the only girl. They were like, ‘why don’t you message Max?’ They messaged me off her phone something ridiculous. We’d had previous very dead chat before. After that, she wished me good luck, and we decided to go for a drink the next day which was very spur of the moment, neither of us thinking anything of it, and since then we’ve not got away from each other. That was the Sunday, I went to see her on the Tuesday, she came to the game the following weekend and it’s kind of developed and snowballed from there.

“The beauty of it is, I can play as well or badly as I do and she doesn’t really have a clue. When I come home to her, everything is the same. I do like that aspect of it. She doesn’t know any of the mistakes I’ve made.”

Malins’ relationship has blossomed. The wedding is slated for next summer in Suffolk and will be a joyous affair. His relationship with the England jersey he wore on 22 occasions, though, is far more complex.

There were flashes of euphoria – the double against the Scots a particular high – and moments of jarring disappointment. Eddie Jones once dismissed Malins from camp for displaying “poor body language” in a team walk-through. Malins was staggered.

His last cap came against Chile, the kind of World Cup turkey shoot where players outside the front-line 23 are on a hiding to nothing. In any case, Malins had a frustrating day. And so his reflections are conflicting. The pride in scaling a peak so few conquer, reconciled with the rueful knowledge he could not do his substantial talent justice in the Test arena.

“I look back and I never really feel like I played my best stuff for England,” he says. “Lots of my game time came on the wing which I wouldn’t say is my natural position. I’m very proud to have 22 caps – it doesn’t feel like I’ve played that much.

“That performance against Chile will probably always hang over me. I could have performed well and still not got a shot in the later games, but it is always lingering that I never really played my best rugby in an England shirt which is a tough one to take. You are playing at the highest level, it’s all you’ve dreamed of, and don’t feel you’ve ever got your best stuff out on the pitch.”

The end of the World Cup was a weird form of purgatory. Malins knew, after Chile, he was toast for the knockouts. But there’s no place in a rugby squad for the dreaded ‘sapper’, not when the biggest prize in the sport is the team’s aim.

I just remember we had to be back for supper on a Tuesday evening and I honestly couldn’t eat supper in the meal room. I had to go up to my room.

“Getting picked for the World Cup was probably the highlight of my career, but it then brought the biggest challenge of my career. You get your chance and don’t perform to the level you want to, and I have not been seen in an England shirt since.

“The pre-season was the biggest and most intense I’d done. Every session you have to put your best foot forward to make sure you get on that plane. Mentally you never switch off because you are always thinking ‘right, what can I do?’

“There was a little break after we played Chile when we got a few days off. I spent some time with Ella, we stayed at a hotel in Le Touquet with Ben Earl and his partner Josie, and had the best few days. All of that pressure and intensity, we could relax.

“Going back into camp after that was the toughest. I just remember we had to be back for supper on a Tuesday evening and I honestly couldn’t eat supper in the meal room. I had to go up to my room. That’s when I realised how much it had drained me.

“You are in it 24/7. You still have to give your all, put a smile on your face, be the team man, but at the end of the day you are part of it but not part of it on a matchday. I wasn’t the only one. I’m sure a few others struggled. You’ve got to take it on the chin, I guess.”

If any positive has come from Malins’ England exile, it is the serendipity he feels now. He’s consciously removed himself from the international rat race. The mental clamour which can reach a crescendo inside a player’s head has long been quieted.

“Before, when you are playing games and you have camps coming up, it is in your mind that you want to get into that England squad. Obviously, I’ve absolutely loved that but I have the feeling that time may have passed. I’m not clinging on to, am I going to get in that squad? It’s sort of freed me up in that sense. I’m very proud to have played that many times, would love to do it again but I’m sort of in the headspace that I’m really not expecting to be able to. I will try and play my best stuff and that’s all you can do, but I’m certainly not holding my breath anymore.”

The dawn of a new era at Saracens has offered further stimulus. After 15 prolific years at the helm, Mark McCall stepped down and Brendan Venter, the innovator and disruptor from South Africa, has returned. Venter’s summer schedule was radically different to what the players expected.

“It feels like we are turning a page, but not starting from scratch,” Malins says. “This year we just went straight into 15 on 15 in pre-season, dug straight into the rugby side of things. Partly to learn how Brendan wants us to play the game and build our game plan from the ground up. That’s been really refreshing. Everyone has loved it; we’ve not been sat on Wattbikes or cross trainers.

From now until the end of my career I will play a lot more at 10 than I have in previous years. It’s a position I love and the coaches want me to cover.

“We will be very practical in our play as Saracens always are. We don’t get away from wanting to be the most physical team out there but building a game plan for how we want to play in each half, what that looks like with our kicking game and making that very clear to our nines, 10s and 15s – what we call the generals.”

Malins has spent the bulk of the pre-season running at fly-half, where he first broke through as a Sarries youth product, before shifting to the back three. The great Owen Farrell is nearing the end of a storied career. Fergus Burke is out of contract in 2027 and attracting serious interest. Malins will see plenty action as Saracens’ quarterback.

“From now until the end of my career I will play a lot more at 10 than I have in previous years. It’s a position I love and the coaches want me to cover. Parents and friends always said it was my best position. I originally got pushed out of there because Owen was the stalwart and I needed game time somewhere else.

“Whether it’s attacking or defencing, you get a lot more touches at 10, it doesn’t depend on how training goes as to how much ball you get. You are forever involved and always active.”

The role is suited wonderfully to Malins’ skillset; the way he sees pictures develop, identifies space and chinks in an opponent’s armour. His fingerprints are on more attacking sets. His keen vision can be used more tellingly. McCall once likened him to a young Beauden Barrett. Across the game, attack is outgunning defence and more than one creator is needed to pull the strings.

“Teams are going with two playmakers, either 10 and 15 or 10 and 12,” Malins says. “You’ve got to have at least two minds of a 10 in that backline. Attack is so dominant because of the emphasis on always having options both sides of the ruck, creating two sides to the attack, with the 10 on one side and your 12 or 15 who can lead the other side, be the eyes, the vision and see that space. That’s the big thing. Being able to see that space and communicate that to get the ball there is key, and that’s where you need your two playmakers.”

Malins will relish this responsibility. A position to make his own, and a wedding to plan. Liberated from the pressure of the past, his future promises happiness.