TOMMY FREEMAN is ready to relish the roaming role handed to him by Andy Farrell.
Freeman will make his Lions debut against Argentina on Friday after being named on the right wing.
The Northampton Saints player has been rewarded for a season which saw him help his club reach the Champions Cup decider, bagging a hat-trick in the semi-final win over Leinster at Croke Park.
That was after he had become the first England player to score in every round of the Six Nations.
And Freeman believes the style of play Farrell wants from his combined side – with wingers getting involved in-field and playing heads-up rugby – will suit him down to the ground.
Freeman said: “Without giving away too much, hopefully we’re going to see a lot of tries and instinctive playing.
“We’re not going to be there to set stuff up and go through phases for the sake of going through phases.
“We want to score off the back of anything we can. The guys we’ve got in the backline, there are threats people have to offer and the ballplayers can put us in those spaces. It’s going to be a lot of fun and dangerous, I think.
“It’s rugby at the end of the day and it’s about finding space and seeing opportunity. If you see the opportunity, you call it and you get the ball there. We’ll be measured on that.
“We don’t want to be missing phases and getting there one phase too late. We want to be playing heads-up rugby.
“You’ve got the set-piece and some structure, but outside of that it’s about seeing space and doing what you can to put pressure on.”
The 24-year-old reckons the biggest challenge is learning the vocabulary, with different names for the same calls that he might already be used to for club and country.
And being asked to contribute in-field by Farrell is not much of an adaptation for Freeman.
He said: “He’s very clear, very precise with his messaging. He’s been awesome. He’s been a massive deciding factor in how quickly we’ve learned and how we want to play the game. He’s been brilliant and easy to work with.
”I think that’s the way I play anyway but I also think it’s the way a winger has to be these days.
“You don’t want wingers staying on the wing and going quiet for phases of games. You want them popping up to inject a bit of pace and power and create that extra number.
“If you’re standing on your wing and being a bit lazy, that’s where you miss some opportunities.”
Assistant coach Richard Wigglesworth admitted there would be some benefits to having nine England players in the starting XV
LION HEARTS
But he stressed: “This is a whole new calling system, it is the Lions way of playing so cohesion will take time in the Lions environment
“But you know Fin Smith and Tommy Freeman have a great connection in terms of finding each other and knowing where each other are but that is in Northampton and England, this is Lions.
“We want them to find a connection quickly in a Lions shirt.”
And Wigglesworth dismissed Australian coach Joe Schmidt’s description of Ireland’s Bundee Aki and Sione Tuipulotu as a ‘Southern Hemisphere centre partnership’.
Aki is from New Zealand and Tupulotu from Australia and are two of seven players in the squad who are playing for Ireland or Scotland through residency.
Wigglesworth said: “Everyone has earned the right to pull on the Lions jersey. They are, to a man, incredibly proud to be here,
“It is not your background or how you have got here, it is what sort of player are you and what sort of man you are, and we have got great men and great players.”
The game is sold out with remaining tickets – the cheapest of which was €148 – snapped up yesterday.
Quizzed about the cost, Wigglesworth said: ” I’ve got my hands full with that without getting involved in ticket prices
“All I know is that everyone you talk to, whether they’re friends, family or strangers on the street, is incredibly excited about the Lions playing here in Dublin.”
