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Lewis Ludlam rubbishes 'frozen out' comments while dropping hint over future
By Josh Raisey
Amid reports Northampton Saints captain Lewis Ludlam may be leaving Franklin's Gardens at the end of the season, he sent an emphatic message today saying "I still bleed green."
The England flanker has been out of action since November with an ankle injury, and in that time his side have gone on an unbeaten run in the Investec Champions Cup and the Gallagher Premiership, including a sensational win against Exeter Chiefs on Saturday after being 26-0 down, which has seen them climb to the top of the league ladder.
During that period, plenty of his teammates have signed new deals at the club, but the 28-year-old has not been part of that cohort. With his contract expiring at the end of the season, and with rumours swirling about a move to France ever since the World Cup concluded, the back row took to X recently to say that his commitment to the club has not wavered.
This is in response to posts where the 25-cap international felt it was being implied he was being frozen out of the team due to his lack of activity online. However, he said that this was simply because he is out with his injury. He added that he expects to be back in the coming weeks, which will provide a major boost to both Saints director of rugby Phil Dowson and England head coach Steve Borthwick.
With Northampton looking to be in a strong position to compete on a domestic and European front in the second half of the season, Ludlam will be crucial to their campaign. Then again, given the way he plays whenever he dons the white of England or the green, black and yellow of Northampton, there should never have been any question marks over his commitment.
"Been seeing a lot of comments directed to me about my lack of posting implying I’m being “frozen out” from the team," the flanker wrote online. "Injured at the moment and hoping to be back in the fold next few weeks. I’m still here and grafting everyday, hence staying off socials. I’m with the team every single day and even though I’m not playing remain committed to this team winning. Don’t write me off just yet, I still bleed green."
While this is a positive for Northampton for the rest of the season, it does not necessarily provide anything concrete over what is over the horizon heading into next season and beyond. An additional comment on his post did however provide a hint as to where his future lies, when he wrote "And I haven’t sold my house."
Nothing is certain, but amid plenty of rumours over where Ludlam will be next season, this may well be a subtle hint that he is staying put.
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Latest Comments
I hope super bee and mopar didn’t read it all.
Go to commentsYou’ve got to look forward to next weekend more than anything too.
They really use this sorta system? Much smaller pool of bonus points available, that would mean they have far less impact. Interestingly you must be withen winning range/chance in France’s Top 14 league, rather that just draw territory, so 6 points instead of 7. Fairly arbitrary and pointless (something the NRL would do to try and look cool), but kinda cool.
I said it Nick’s and other articles, I’m not sure about the fixed nature of matchups in these opening rounds. For instance, I would be interested in seeing an improved ranking/prediction/reflection ladder to what we had last year, were some author here game so rejigged list of teams purely based of ‘who had played who’ so far in the competition. It was designed to analyze the ladder and better predict what the real order would be after the full round robin had completed. It needed some improvement, like factoring in historical data as well, as it was a bit skiwif, but it is the sort of thing that would give a better depiction of what sort of contests weve had so far, because just using my intuition, the matchups have been very ‘level appropriate’ so far, and were jet to get the other end of the spectrum, season ranked bottom sides v top sides etc.
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