The most hamstrung footballer in the AFL, Nathan Freeman, will play six games in a row for the first time
NATHAN Freeman is the forgotten footballer but the injury-wracked midfielder is set to beat a personal record when he plays six games in a row — for the first time ever.
St Kilda
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NATHAN Freeman grabbed the ball in the centre square and burst into space.
“He really took off,” Sandringham coach Lindsay Gilbee gushed.
“It was like, ‘Gee, where’s that come from?’”
That was two weeks ago. Freeman was playing his fourth consecutive VFL match for Sandringham, as a tagger.
Last Sunday at Coburg, he did it again, trapping a hitout, zooming clear in about six steps and placing the footy in front of Paddy McCartin.
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Freeman, 21, won the following centre clearance, too, when he was clobbered in a high tackle.
He took the free kick and then headed to the showers with mild concussion.
Freeman’s fifth consecutive match lasted only a half. After overcoming that head knock and a hip bursa scare at training on Wednesday, on Saturday he should play No.6 in a row against the Northern Blues at Preston City Oval.
Finally, Freeman’s streak of five games to end the 2012 TAC Cup season in his under-age year will be beaten.
It’s been a rough ride for what medicos suspect is the most hamstrung footballer the game has seen.
Freeman is the forgotten footballer. How many St Kilda fans would know he owns the No.10 guernsey?
The horror run started 40 minutes into his first pre-season game for former club Collingwood in February 2014.
Freeman heard a “pop” in his leg as he kicked along the wing to Quinten Lynch.
The No.10 draft pick hobbled off and punched the Simonds Stadium interchange bench in anger at the first hamstring injury of his career.
If he knew what would follow, he might have ripped the chairs out of the dugout.
That pop was the sound of his right tendon rupturing, an injury that took two years to shake.
Since that night there have been about four or five tears to the right hamstring, one to the lower part of the left hamstring and zero AFL games.
The resilient Dingley boy has watched 13 Collingwood and St Kilda teammates make their debut as his hamstrings stayed as tight as piano wire.
Enough was enough.
In November the Saints sent Freeman to Germany, where he likely got a batch of injections from Dr Hans-Wilhelm Muller-Wohlfahrt.
Former Cat Max Rooke was Healing Hans’ first AFL patient as he sought a remedy for a chronic hamstring during the 2007 season.
“I hadn’t seen anything like it before, everyone was dressed in white,” Rooke said this week.
“It looked like something out of the future in one of those movies you’d see.”
As Rooke sat in the waiting room, he watched a revolving door of international soccer superstars visit the “young-looking” 74-year-old who still has a “thick mane” of hair.
Healing Hans is known for injecting calves’ blood and rooster comb extract and for helping treat Usain Bolt and Wayne Rooney.
Rooke returned and played in Geelong’s premiership, and it appears Healing Hans has also aided Freeman.
When Rooke boarded the plane for the $20,000 mission, his hamstrings were so bad he could barely walk.
The mysterious doctor booked him treatments with physios, chiropractors and podiatrists around Munich, which Rooke travelled to on trains.
“By the fourth day a lot of my pain had nearly gone,” Rooke said.
“I remember getting back off the plane back in Australia and I went for a little jog that day and I felt nothing.”
St Kilda football manager Jamie Cox said this season was about continuity for Freeman, rather than rushing that craved AFL debut.
Every healthy VFL game is a baby step — another milestone.
“If by the end of the year the performances really start to shine, I reckon he’ll hit the off-season with a real burst of enthusiasm,” Cox said.
“We don’t want to put any limits on whether he can play this year. But similar to when we recruited Jake (Carlisle), we’ll be patient.
“We want Nathan to be a good player when we want to be a really good team, and for him to be a bit of cream for that period.
“Whether that means late this year or early next year, they’re not time frames we’re putting on him.”
There is an understandable fascination with Freeman.
He is the high draft pick who walked out on Collingwood and has broken down more often than Tasmanian bids for an AFL team.
Cox said Freeman would comfortably sit in the top five Saints players members want to hear about.
After 3½ barren seasons is it fair to put him in the same basket as knee victims Alex Johnson, Daniel Menzel and Clay Smith?
“No, that’s not 100 per cent fair,” Freeman’s manager Paul Connors said.
“If you add brackets, he’s just outside of that, but Saints supporters should get excited — they might have one in the bank.”
Freeman was chosen by Magpies recruiter Derek Hine because of his mix of scintillating speed and stamina.
He had the rare ability to burst away from a stoppage.
Given his body shape, it reminded most recruiters of West Coast’s Luke Shuey.
Some preferred the Patrick Dangerfield parallel, or even Chris Judd.
“It’s a pretty handy genetic balance if you’re a speed-endurance beast,” Cox said.
Years of rehabilitation have not wrecked his endurance.
In the 2015 pre-season Freeman won a 2km time-trial at Collingwood — beating Steele Sidebottom — and last summer only St Kilda captain Jarryn Geary had him covered over 3km.
But has constant medical treatment diminished that tearaway acceleration?
“We’ll wait to see if he gets back to his top speed,” Cox said.
“But his testing over the past few weeks has been really positive in games. He’s now starting to have some of those bursts he was drafted for.”
Freeman played with rockets in his boots in 2013.
At the AFL draft combine he ranked top 10 for the 3km time-trial and the beep test.
He won the repeat sprints and then blitzed the 20m sprint — clocking 2.82sec.
Fremantle’s Danyle Pearce (2.79sec) is the only present player who recorded a faster time in draft combine history.
It was his X-Factor as he, Josh Kelly, Christian Salem and Zach Merrett formed a sparkling Sandringham Dragons quartet.
“Nathan was right in with all of those boys,” Dragons talent boss Ryan O’Connor said.
“He had power above other TAC Cup kids. He’s got the capacity with his running ability to blow games open.”
After two frustrating years at Collingwood, Freeman barely slept for two weeks when deciding his future.
The security of St Kilda’s three-year offer was too appealing for a kid yet to play a game, so he asked coach Nathan Buckley to trade him to the club he grew up supporting.
It’s worth noting that while the Magpies paid pick 10, the Saints gave up very little.
In 2015 they parted with a future pick — which after changing hands five times ultimately delivered Port Adelaide Willem Drew at No.33 last November.
Saints recruiter Tony Elshaug snared Jack Billings at No.3 in Freeman’s draft and on his talent order the pair would’ve been closer than the seven picks between them.
Whether Freeman will ever become the long-term jet we once suspected is a valid question.
What is indisputable is his character. Ask around, you won’t hear a bad word.
“He reminds me of Jack Watts, always looking for the positive,” Connors said.
Connors’ offsider Robbie D’Orazio says Freeman is like an “Energiser Bunny”, able to light up any room he enters.
Freeman’s bubbly personality and leadership streak was the sealing factor for Hine on 2013 draft night.
“Paul and I say if Nathan Freeman ever left us we’d have to have a really hard look at ourselves, because he is the best kid I’ve ever met,” D’Orazio said.
“If it was another person they’d be walking around with their bottom lip out and having a sook.
“Not once has he had a sook about it. He knows he will be back and I’m sure the AFL (world) will be happy when he is back, because he’s a star.”
Nathan Buckley once told Freeman: “It’s not about where you start, it’s about where you end up”.
D’Orazio knows the football world will warm to Freeman, if it ever gets the chance.
“I’m happy to say because I love him that much that if he can actually make it to the AFL it’d be the best story I’ve been involved in,” D’Orazio said.
“And if he didn’t get back it’d be the saddest story.”
Here’s to a happy ending.
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