the Champions Cup quarter-final<\/a> in April. Clean off-the-top ball, a deft lob by Rory Hutchinson, a glorious one-handed flick on by McParland to Fin Smith and great support from Tommy Freeman and Fraser Dingwall made for the slickest of first-phase strike plays. Saints lost a thrilling contest 43-41 but for a while their attacking game was untouchable.<\/p>\nHow they would love to rediscover that \u201cflow state\u201d at Leicester\u2019s expense in a potentially thunderous Prem semi-final beneath the Friday night lights at Franklin\u2019s Gardens. Northampton are currently without their injured England scrum-half Alex Mitchell but, increasingly, McParland poses a similarly lethal threat. Excellent spatial awareness, a constant sniping threat, clever support play … as Saints\u2019 head coach Sam Vesty says: \u201cHe is a nine who makes things happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Archie McParland always craved an England cap from the time he first played rugby at the age of five. Photograph: David Rogers\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
McParland also comes from a family accustomed to operating under pressure. His mother Emma is a maxillofacial surgeon at Glan Clwyd hospital near Rhyl specialising in skin cancer of the face and neck and jaw deformities. But despite growing up in north Wales \u2013 he first played rugby at Ruthin RFC at the age of five \u2013 it was always an England cap he craved. \u201cAs soon as I knew what England rugby was I wanted to play for them. To get the call up (to England\u2019s training squad) was an amazing feeling … I rang my parents straight afterwards and they were over the moon for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
His parents have long been aware how much their son wanted to make it. As a teenager he chose to focus on trying to progress as a No 9 rather than a fly-half only for the Covid lockdown to intervene. Determined to use the extra time to improve his passing, McParland drafted in his parents to stand at the other end of the lawn and catch a constant stream of balls. The sessions were so regular they eventually had to resort to wearing gardening gloves to try and protect their hands. \u201cI won\u2019t put them through that pain again,\u201d says McParland now. \u201cI\u2019m forever grateful for their patience: standing in the garden, getting bruised hands. I just wanted to pass all day long.\u201d<\/p>\n
It also did his ambitions no harm when he found himself playing in the same Stowe school side as Henry Pollock, with whom he has since graduated into the Saints and England setups. Those imagining McParland to be an attention-seeking Pollock clone, however, should revise their preconceptions. \u201cI\u2019m most definitely not a similar personality to him. I don\u2019t think many people are. It obviously does help us having played together through school and the Northampton academy. To be on that journey together and have him there for my first England involvement was obviously great. But I\u2019m definitely not like him.\u201d Really? Not even a tiny bit? \u201cHonestly I\u2019ve no hidden talents. Put me down as boring.\u201d<\/p>\n
Northampton scrum-half Archie McParland has a constant thirst for self-improvement, studying Bordeaux\u2019s captain Maxime Lucu. Photograph: Mike Egerton\/PA<\/p>\n
On the contrary, the evidence strongly points to a deceptively smart operator with a constant thirst for self-improvement. Among other opponents he has been closely studying Bordeaux\u2019s scrum-half and captain, Maxime Lucu, keen to emulate the way the French international artfully controls the tempo of a game and contributes even when he does not have the ball. \u201cWatching Lucu the thing that shouts out to me is his defensive leadership. It\u2019s crazy how much he\u2019s involved in the defensive system and he also leads through his actions. I\u2019d love to put that in my game but equally I want to show my own strengths.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore I was always focused on minimal risk and making as few mistakes as possible. That really shut me off from expressing how I wanted to play. That\u2019s been the learning curve for me and, I\u2019m sure, for other people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Training with England in Bagshot has also forced him to shed any lingering inhibitions, particularly with other talented young No 9s such as Charlie Bracken and Lucas Friday pushing for senior squad recognition. \u201cWhen you\u2019re young and coming into that environment it might seem quite daunting and you have to earn you way in. You\u2019ve got to back yourself and your ability. I\u2019ve been feeling much better on that front and I feel like my confidence has grown. You\u2019ve just got to go in and not shy away from what you\u2019re good at and what you\u2019ve been picked for. Pollock\u2019s a good example of that and I felt I did that, too. I really enjoyed getting my first taste of what it\u2019s like. Hopefully I\u2019ll get more opportunities to go back.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now, though, all that matters is taming the Tigers in front of Northampton\u2019s expectant \u2018Shoe Army\u2019 in the stands. \u201cEvery game this season it\u2019s been crazy. The fans are so good; they\u2019re definitely the best in the league and I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if they were the best in Europe. It\u2019s an amazing feeling running out in front of a full crowd.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the experienced Mitchell\u2019s absence he is also well aware the table-topping Saints need him to step up. \u201cIt\u2019s obviously gutting for him but I\u2019m just concentrating on putting my best foot forward and helping the team as much as I can. For me it\u2019ll probably be one of the biggest games I\u2019ve played at home. I\u2019m really excited for it. I\u2019ve been as a fan many times but I\u2019ve never played at Twickenham. It would be great to get there but first we need the semi-final performance we want.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plenty of aspiring young players will relate to how Archie McParland once felt. Northampton\u2019s fast-emerging scrum-half, on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-729922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}