Freddie Burns has won his first Premiership title since starting his first English career 13 years ago
Freddie Burns says he realized a childhood dream when he threw Leicester to the 11th Premiership title with a last-minute goal against Saracens.
The 32-year-old former England midfielder, who has played in more than 200 Premiership games, sealed the 15-12 victory in his first appearance in the main event.
He left the bench in the final to replace the injured George Ford.
“At the age of five I had two goals: to play in my home country and win a Premiership,” Burns said.
“Winning a Premier League is special, but winning it at this club with this group of players means more than anything.”
Burns returned from a season playing in Japan to rejoin the Tigers this season, having made 75 appearances with the East Midlands between 2014 and 2017.
He told BBC Radio Leicester he feared he had missed a drop-goal opportunity before, and admits it would have looked as if the Tigers were “dead and buried” when Owen Farrell fired a late penalty to equalize 12-12. against 14-. the Leicester man, who had Matt Scott sinned four minutes from the end.
“We’re always in a fight,” Burns continued. “We’re never dead. We’ve proven it over and over again.”
Tigers winger Chris Ashton praised Burns for “taking his chance when he came in” in difficult circumstances, as a replacement for the influential Ford midfielder, who a week earlier scored 22 points in his victory for 27-14 in the semi-final against Northampton.
“That’s the good player he is,” Ashton told BBC Radio 5 Live.
“This week I was talking about an abandonment goal in Japan that tried to win a game and failed completely, so who would have thought that today I would have a chance to win it with Leicester?”
Tigers head coach Borthwick, who has overseen Leicester’s rise to the top of the English game in just his second full season at Welford Road, praised Burns as “phenomenal” after the Twickenham game.
“He’s an amazing character who has been hugely added to the team on the field, but also off the field,” Borthwick said.
“We were drowning”
Saracen coach Mark McCall congratulated the Tigers on a “phenomenal season” for being first on the table at the end of each round of the regular season before winning the final.
“They were the best team and they deserved to win the game,” McCall said.
“They caught us in the middle for long periods of time and they backed us up with some brilliant defensive work. We were a little suffocated. We didn’t get as close as possible.
“Hopefully we can use the pain we will feel over the next few days in a constructive way to get stronger next summer.”
Jamie George acknowledged that the Tigers had been the best team, but said he was disappointed with the form of the defeat.
“It’s tough. Horrible, really. We didn’t show up and that’s the most disappointing thing,” he said.
“Some of our great players didn’t show up,” George added.
The Englishman compared Leicester’s performance to the style his own team used with great effect to win so many national and European honors.
“They play a pretty traditional style of rugby and when they get along they are very hard to beat as they keep catching you, a bit like the old Saracens,” George said.
“We had no answer today and that is disappointing.”