Freeman delighted with flying Saints return against Bristol

Northampton Saints fullback Tommy Freeman is relishing being back in a Saints shirt, after crossing the whitewash twice against Bristol Bears in his side’s 36-20 victory on Friday night.

The 20-year-old marked his return to action for Northampton by putting his name on the scoresheet twice in the men in Black, Green and Gold’s Gallagher Premiership triumph at Ashton Gate – with Paul Hill and George Furbank also among the scorers in Saints’ bonus-point win.

And after having spent the majority of November within the England camp during their Autumn Nations international campaign, Freeman is hoping to turn his experience into a run of strong Premiership performances.

“It’s good to be back,” said Freeman. “England camp was really good – it taught me a lot.

“I enjoyed being around the leaders in that group like Owen Farrell and obviously Courtney Lawes as well. I really enjoyed my time there, but it’s good to be back and to get off to a flying start.

“We said at the start of the game on Friday that this block will show us where we’re going to go this season, so it was good to see our fight.

“Obviously they came out flying in that second half and we managed to adapt. We didn’t go into our shells; we came out fighting and got the result that we needed.

Freeman started on the wing for Saints in Bristol, and scored a brace of tries either side of half-time, first cutting inside to cross the whitewash after Alex Mitchell darted down the blindside from a scrum, before breaking a couple of tackles and charging over from a Furbank offload.

But the young wing insisted it was Saints’ set piece efforts that were key to victory as the Gallagher Premiership made its comeback, and tipped his cap to to Northampton’s dominant pack.

He added: “It was definitely a fun game to play in, but I put it down to the boys in the scrum because they gave us backs the platform to go and do our thing.

“It was awesome to get two tries and to get a big win at Ashton Gate.

“Every time we go to Ashton Gate, they [Bristol] always offer something different and when things are going our way, they change something and we don’t manage to adapt.

“But we adapted really well on this occasion, our set piece was class, and it was awesome to get our first game of this block under our belt and we can fire into this coming week.”