Mark McCall was the man at the heart of one of the most successful periods of any club — not just any rugby club — in this country. He was essential to Saracens’ tightness as a group, to their unique identity, to the way they drove new standards and to the way they stood for so long as the peerless rugby force in England and Europe. And yet he was right at the heart of the biggest scandal club rugby in England had ever experienced and it is hard to separate any one thing from the other.
He was also brilliant for England. If England had won the World Cup in 2019, as they should have done, then McCall would have been one of the chief reasons why.
His tenure at Saracens was notable for, among many things, the development of a…