'Any beer in here? They don't do champagne anymore when you win'

It was pantomime at Twickenham when Leicester hero Freddie Burns arrived in to say his piece to the media around an hour after full-time on Saturday, only this time the cheeky chappie wasn’t the villain. Over the years, his repartee had been littered with yarns containing a punchline putdown about himself. 

Getting sacked by Tigers the first time round while in Nandos, that infamous celebration of the Bath that ‘try’ that wasn’t and so on. Now, this was his moment to bask in the limelight - except he was finding it all a little overwhelming. 

“Cheers guys, thank you. I don’t know what is happening,” he quipped as multiple tape recording devices were being placed on the bench in front of him and numerous journalists were offering their hearty congratulations following a final that was decided by Burns’ dead duck of a drop goal with 23 seconds remaining on the stadium clock. 

He sounded like a man who could do with a drink. “Is there any beer in here or not? They don’t really do champagne anymore when you win,” he chirped giddily before a 14-minute set-piece alongside Leicester boss Steve Borthwick got going. It was simply stunning how it had come to this.

Twenty-five months ago he let it all hang out with RugbyPass, discussing at length why he was abruptly quitting England for Japan amid the pandemic.  It sounded at the time like a permanent sayonara. 

“Things haven’t gone the way I wanted them to at Bath. When I first signed at Bath I definitely saw myself finishing my career out at Bath and winning some trophies, but that isn’t quite how it has panned out. I feel like my attacking game has been stifled a little at Bath. The Premiership is a great league and there is a lot of pressure on, but I feel the game now in England has turned into a game where you try not to lose instead of going out to win.”

All is now utterly changed, though. There was Leicester, the club that ambitiously tempted Burns home from the Far East, going for it despite being a man down and the final deadlocked and heading for extra time. That courage left them deserving winners. Unquestionably.  

“I’m going to have a few days on the drink with the boys and then get away, get some sun, relax and then you go back again. July 18th, back again. I’m going to enjoy this, have a few beers with the boys in the changing room, enjoy celebrating what we have done this year and the achievements we have made and then it is back to the drawing board to push on and try and back it up.”

It was last October,  during a routine early-season win at Sixways, when Burns was convinced he had done the right thing rejoining Leicester years after his initial three-year stint ended disappointingly in 2017. The supporters grabbed his attention that autumnal day and there they were again on Saturday, standing up and being counted as the 16th man in a fashion that helped inspire Burns to victory.      

“This club is like no other in that instance, the support we get. I remember earlier in the season playing Worcester away and there was a pocket in the corner just making loads of noise. To pull up today and see as much green as we did was amazing and in those crucial moments you need them - and the main thing is they have been through the tough times of the last few years as well. 

“Players come and go, supporters always support the same club through their life and they are there through thick and thin. To give them this moment, to be back where the club belongs, champions of England, it still feels weird saying it. To be champions of England and to give them that satisfaction and that reward for their support just means the world to everyone at Tigers.”

There were just 24 minutes gone when the No22 went up on the board to replace the hobbled No10, George Ford. Getting tossed in so early to a huge match wasn’t something unusual for Burns - it happened just seven days earlier when the injured Dan Kelly needed replacing after just two minutes. Again, a Red Bull was gulped down as he stripped and on he went. 

“I made sure I drank it double-quick,” he explained. “Last week proved that you have got to be ready. My role in the team this year is something that I had to check my ego a little bit but it is a role that I enjoyed. I don’t always enjoy being on the bench, I’m a competitive man, I want to start games.

“But to play that role, whether it is covering Freddie (Steward) at full-back or covering George at ten, it’s something I have really enjoyed and everyone in that changing room and everyone that was out on that pitch after the game has contributed. That is the thing I am most proud of, we train hard… it’s been fantastic.”   

It was precisely for such situations that arose these past two weekends that Borthwick had gotten on the blower last year to entice Burns back to Leicester despite his status as a 30-something who had exited the Premiership under a 2020 cloud. “He’s not that old,” insisted the Tigers coach, explaining why he wanted the ex-England player on his Tigers roster.

“You always need experience at nine, ten and 15, you always need multiple players of high quality because you want them to play international rugby as well and when Freddie’s name came across my desk I wanted to ring him straight away and see if he was interested. I got the energy and excitement from him straight away, that this guy wants this challenge, he wants to come back here. 

“Our fans played an enormous part. It leaked out and the fans were trying to persuade him to join. A phenomenal player and also an incredibly gregarious character and you want that in your changing room, you want that in your squad, so to have Freddie and George and Freddie Steward at 10/15 has been excellent this year.”

Gregarious is definitely right. Burns could understandably have hogged the limelight after his dramatic kick had clinched the title, but milking it wasn’t his style. Instead, there was a classy acknowledgement of the bereaved Tom Youngs, who tragically lost his wife less than a fortnight ago, a reference to people at Leicester who do unstinting wonderful charitable things to help out, as well as a salute to the unlucky Ford.  

“It means everything,” appraised Burns when asked about the marvellously touching sight of Youngs coming onto the pitch to help raise the trophy with Leicester skipper Ellis Genge. “What he has had to go through, what Tiff had to through, you just can’t imagine the pain that they have gone through. It’s given us a drive and the team is full of people like that, characters like that. 

“Everyone knows what Kev (Sinfield) has done with Rob Burrows. We had Will Findlay, part of the S&C staff, running a half marathon every day for a month and that is what builds a team. You see these guys that are willing to go to dark places and still support the team and be behind us, you just what to give them and their families the rewards they deserve. To see Tommy, to give him a hug, he is a very close friend first and a teammate second, to do it for him and his family and for Tiff was amazing.”

On live TV in the immediate aftermath of the win, Burns had playfully jibed about going for a chip over the top of the Saracens defence rather than dropping the winning Leicester goal. A clarification was sought. “It was a joke,” he replied, prompting laughter amongst his audience. “It was a joke, Steve. 

“Actually, I was chatting to Ben Youngs and we got a bit of momentum off one of the carries and I felt there was an opportunity to shift it but yeah, I managed to shin it over, it was like a dead duck going over but I don’t care, it went through and I just want to touch on George Ford’s contribution to the team. 

“It was gutting for him to come off so early. He’s been instrumental in how the team has gone this year it was important to give him, Ellis and the guys that are moving on at the end of the season the send-off that they deserve. I was gutted for Fordy to come off but when you go on you have got to try and take the opportunity and I think I did alright. We won so I must have done something right. I’m very happy.”

Fair play. Nice guys make great winners.