FREDDIE BURNS

The English fly-half has realised a dream by joining the Highlanders

APPARENTLY THE contacts of coaching mentor Chris Boyd came into play when fly-half Freddie Burns was called into the Highlanders squad to replace prop Luca Inch.

You might remember the 2012 England shellacking of the All Blacks at Twickenham, when Manu Tuilagi ran riot and food poisoning is said to have laid low many of the tourists. Well, that was Burns’s Test debut, a cameo off the bench. Beating the All Blacks in your maiden outing. Test rugby must have seemed easy.

“I made the mistake, when speaking at a dinner down here a few weeks ago, of saying that was a rugby highlight. It went down like a lead balloon. But I was fortunate to be a part of it,” says Burns, now in Dunedin.

Last June, Burns’s late drop-goal saw Tigers win the Premiership over Saracens in a tight final. This season also saw him with plenty of match-day action for Leicester as new signing Handré Pollard was working back from injury.

He explains the swift train of events that led him to go from Leicester in January to Dunedin in February: “It came out of the blue. If (Erik) Ten Hag had called me to ask ‘Do you fancy playing for Man United?’ the answer would be yes, but it doesn’t mean a contract will be on the table.”