His first rugby memory is of England winning the World Cup in 2003, but Freddie Flintoff was one of his first childhood heroes.
“It was from the 2005 Ashes. I had the DVD of that series and I must have watched it at least 10 times. Now I would say my favourite player is Joe Root. I just love watching him bat. He is very elegant.
“Really early on, cricket was probably the sport I liked the most and then I started to realise I was probably a bit better at rugby so it had to go on the back burner. But I played through school at Minor Counties at Under-16s. When I moved to Bedford School at 16 I continued to play there and still try to play in some old-boy games in the summer when I can.”
And so, when Rory Burns, the England opener, came to visit England last year, Furbank was eager to hear of his experiences, having made his own international debut for Eddie Jones’ side in the defeat by France at the Stade de France a few months earlier.
“It was pretty cool,” Furbank added. “He came in to have a chat with the guys and answer a few questions. He was relatively new to the international scene as well.
“He talked about how he had had a very few very good county championship seasons but had not been called up and he spoke about keeping his head down and working hard at his game and backing himself that if he keeps scoring runs, the opportunity will come and obviously it did eventually.”
Burns had to endure the humiliation of falling to the first ball of the Ashes on that forgettable first day for England, but Furbank is confident the Surrey captain will still make his mark.
“He’ll come back better. He will hit a couple of hundreds in the series,” he added.
But what about Northampton? A home defeat leaves Chris Boyd’s hopes of qualifying for the knock-out stages already in jeopardy and the squad travel to Belfast to face Ulster on Friday night. Dan McFarland’s side are riding high from their impressive victory over Clermont Auvergne and buoyed by the return of captain Iain Henderson and a first home start for Springbok No 8 Duane Vermeulen.
