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Tommy Freeman urges coaches to play him even as game-cap limit looms
By Neil Squires
Tommy Freeman has urged Northampton not to take him out of the firing line ahead of the British and Irish Lions tour.
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The red-hot wing, who has scored 15 tries in his last ten games for club and country, is in danger of exceeding the Premiership’s player welfare target for the second season running.
However, with a Champions Cup final coming up ahead of the tour and in the form of his life, Freeman is desperate to play on.
“After the announcement, to be honest the body feels fresh and ready to go. I’m just really excited with all of that,” said the 24-year-old.
“I’ve obviously played quite a bit, but the body’s still feeling good. I think when I have breaks, that’s when my body starts to crumble a bit so hopefully I can keep the body ticking over and have a good summer.
“It’s just about being as fresh as possible and getting our load right going into weeks and limiting a bit of contact that we probably would normally do.
“I think the coaches would naturally do that at this part of the season anyway.
“The main concern is injury but I think if you start worrying about injuries, that’s when you will probably get injured. So we’ll be going flying in and hopefully get some silverware.”
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Freeman was one of four Premiership players who broke the 2,400 minute limit last season, along with Maro Itoje, Henry Slade and Nick Tomkins.
That ceiling, which was set at the equivalent of 30 full matches, has been lowered this season and re-set at 30 game involvements, regardless of how many minutes a player has been on the field for.
Freeman has played 26 matches for club and country – 22 of which were full 80-minute appearances.
While he and most of the rest of Northampton’s first-choice side have been stood down for tomorrow’s Premiership game at Exeter, Freeman is likely to return next weekend against Saracens in a game which will act as a tune-up for the European final against Bordeaux Bègles.
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The Saints then face Gloucester in their final league match. The play-offs, while unlikely, remain a mathematical possibility before the ten-match Lions tour.
It is a season which rolls on and on for Freeman but one, with two hat-tricks in his last four games, he does not want to stop.
“It’s been a pretty awesome season,” he said. “At the start, during the autumn, I couldn’t get over the whitewash, to be honest. I was a winger who hadn’t scored at Twickenham and I didn’t think I had scored very many tries. But when the first one came, they all followed, which was pretty good.
“Obviously as a winger, tries are important and you want to get over the line, but I’m equally happy setting up a try as scoring them.
“I’m just always hungry for the next thing and want to be striving to do whatever I can for the following week.”
An extended rest will have to wait until after the tour – when he, like the rest of the Premiership Lions, will have a mandatory ten-week stand-down period which will take in the first two league games of next season.
