Owen Farrell turned down a place in the initial British and Irish Lions squad after breaking down in tears when his father Andy asked him to tour.
Andy Farrell, the Lions head coach, has revealed in his new autobiography, which is being serialised in The Times, that he always intended to pick Owen until a phone call between the pair stopped him.
Owen Farrell did eventually join the tour as injury cover and contributed to a 2-1 series win in Australia, coming on as a substitute in the second and third Tests. His absence from the initial squad was a talking point, however, especially when Andy picked his players but suggested that he could add one or two more to the tour at a later date.
“I wanted to bring him [Owen], despite his difficult and injury-disrupted season in Paris,” wrote Farrell. “Every other coach favoured picking Owen too. Ordinarily, that would have been it: we would have simply named him along with the others. But I knew it was not yet a done deal.
“I told the coaches I would have to ring Owen first. I needed to know whether he wanted to go and what he thought about stepping back into the international spotlight after all he had to put up with during the 2023 World Cup.
“This was a very hard phone call. When I asked Owen if he would come, he broke down in tears. He said he did not think it would be right for him, for the squad, or for me as head coach.
“It was a tough thing to hear. I told him to think it through, to take his time, and if he changed his mind then I would put him on the standby list to cover an injury.”
