LONG READ Mick Cleary: 'What McCall helped build at Saracens is bearing the self-same fruit for England.'

Cut from the same cloth, Mark McCall and Steve Borthwick found themselves last week where they would rather not be – in the spotlight. These two men are happiest in the shadows, going about their business but without the urge to shout about it. That’s one reason why McCall has decided to walk away from the front-line after 17 years fighting the Saracens cause, those years including a spell helping nurture the leadership and coaching skills of Borthwick who spent six years at the club, guiding them to the first of their eventual six Premiership titles. No-nonsense, reliable, sound, attentive, focussed, rigorous – these are not adjectives that make for a rock ‘n’roll star. Yet they are the attributes that made for the most successful coach English club rugby – make that English rugby – has ever seen, the Sir Alex Ferguson of the oval ball code.

Borthwick has those self-same values coursing through him, although he did seem to have been on the laughing gas a few days ago when joshing with journos and extolling the virtues of TikTok videos in a bid to reach a new audience for rugby and to create ‘ superstars’ of the game. If anything that shows how Borthwick has developed his own persona to suit the needs of the day. He’s hardly ever going to be a front-man for Oasis but it was proof positive that Borthwick has become more confident in his role, as evidenced also from his comments at the Six Nations launch in Edinburgh. In fact, as with McCall, there is far more to both men than meets a superficial eye cast over them. They are nuanced, equally capable of a light touch as they are of an iron fist.

What McCall helped build at Saracens is bearing the self-same fruit for England. There is a sense of shared purpose, of a collective driving towards a shared goal. There has been a lot of woolly, happy-clappy stuff attributed to the Saracens project down the years, of their success being shaped by bonding exercises as well as the occasional monumental piss-up as if all an elite, trophy-winning side needed to excel was ten pints of Old Wobbly followed by a group Ruby Murray.

Of course, the elephant in the McCall room is that of the salary cap scandal that rocked the domestic game and the club to its core in 2019. It was a dark time for Saracens and for McCall himself who may have been at one remove from the bottom line of contract dealing  but who cannot be absolved from culpability. It was a messy, halting experience. The detail has long since been raked over and filed away. Saracens paid a price, and rightly so, shamed and relegated to the Championship. McCall wears that sackcloth too.

In many ways McCall has done as much for England Rugby as did a Clive Woodward or certainly an Eddie Jones, spotting players from a young age and helping raise them to peaks of excellence.

But here’s the thing. McCall didn’t shirk his responsibilities. He didn’t walk away. No-one did. Not one. They all stayed true to the Saracens’ faith. It’s easy to roar allegiance when you’re on an all-expenses jolly to New Year but not when you’re down in the Championship trying to keep your fitness and sharpness levels high enough to still perform on the international front. That’s what the Saracens international contingent meant to each other, that’s what their identity meant in practice, and that’s what all those high-profile players such as Owen Farrell, Maro Itoje and Jamie George brought to England, that same loyalty to the cause and to each other. That’s what McCall (and others such as founding father and soon-to-be director of rugby again, Brendan Venter) have inculcated). Such deep-rooted esprit de corps does not happen by luck. It’s not to be handed out casually from a few glib Wellness and Happiness cards, absorbed with an early-morning Vitamin Shake.

In many ways McCall has done as much for England Rugby as did a Clive Woodward or certainly an Eddie Jones, spotting players from a young age and helping raise them to peaks of excellence. He had one day of fanfare when announcing his retirement from front-line duties. He deserves more.

Borthwick is very much part of that continuum, schooled in the same way. It’s not coincidence that his two captains, Jamie George and Maro Itoje, have had the formative Saracens upbringing. A word for George, as noble a figure as there has been in the game in recent times, never taking anything for granted, taking his business seriously but never himself.

And that’s where Borthwick and England find themselves on the cusp of the 2026 Six Nations Championship. The personnel may no longer have quite the Saracens footprint that once it did but the traits are still there. This is a tight-knit group, forged through early years of difficulty and under-achievement, into a unit that is promising to deliver something notable over the coming weeks.

In another departure from the norm, and as espoused in last week’s RugbyPass column, Borthwick has set the team a target, that of approaching the Parisian finale on the last weekend with something tangible to play for

In another departure from the norm, and as espoused in last week’s RugbyPass column, Borthwick has set the team a target, that of approaching the Parisian finale on the last weekend with something tangible to play for, be it a title or even a Grand Slam.

That is within England’s grasp as well it should be after a run of 11 successive victories. It’s far from a formality. Cue the Saracens vibe of long-ago. You don’t win anything without graft and toughness and smartness, without backing each other right to the final whistle. Even beating tormented Wales, a team so savagely let down by those running the game in that country, will not be seen as a gimme. Likewise, of course, all that follows.

Borthwick has brought this squad to a good place. There are injury concerns, particularly at prop, but even these impediments are par for the course. The decisions he has to make in selection are of the good variety. In the injury-enforced absence of George Martin, Borthwick might be a little bit stretched at lock but with the likes of Alex Coles to shuffle around from the bench there are plenty of options and permutations to consider. One of his principal considerations will be who to start and who to bring on from the bench for late-game impact, be it a Henry Pollock or George Furbank as he gets back to full match fitness. It’s a selectorial luxury to be weighing up such things, all to be settled no doubt at the Girona training camp. Saracens and England are in good hands.