- You'd place Marcus ahead of Andrew Mehrtens (-already)?

I would. Mehrtens was great but was past his prime when he arrived at The Stoop. Marcus still has so much development in him but is already one of the best fly halves in the Prem. Quite a feat for a 20-year-old.

Mehrtens’ spirals were a thing of beauty though. No safe end over end for him.

 Yes, fair point. Plus I've heard it said that Mehrtens  --how shall I put this--  was 'rarely central to defensive strategies' even in his All Blacks pomp, whereas from what I've seen so far, Marcus is already a little more, er, robust in the line

Sorry to disagree Marcus still has some way to go. When Danny is not on the pitch it all becomes a bit headless. I am sure he will get there but in my opinion some way to go yet.

Marcus’s work rate is relentless but that’s at times part of his problem - he needs to step back and be a bit more cerebral, pick his moments, keep a cooler head and assess the state of the game. Not dissimilar to Farrell, except it’s down to youthful enthusiasm and energy rather than hotheadedness. No doubt he’ll get there but I echo the previous comment, Danny at 9 runs everything for us and that is where the team performs best, but is therefore so heavily reliant. It also may have somewhat hampered Marcus’s development this season. I’d like to see Gustard challenge him to run the back line next season, not least given the rumoured A List fly-half signing (Anscombe, Cipriani, Barrett) appears not to be happening. If that in turn means he gets slightly less stuck in defensively, I would have no issue with that.