Steward has staked his claim to be England’s first-choice full-back at the Six Nations
Freddie Steward is enjoying his rugby again, and on Saturday night the Leicester Tigers full-back offered England a vision of a rejuvenation as his country’s first-choice for the Six Nations.
It needs to be said that a 38-10 victory over a broken Ulster at Welford Road in the Champions Cup was very different to facing all of Ireland in Dublin if Steward reclaims the England No 15 jersey for the start of the tournament in three weeks’ time.
But an evening spent following Steward closely through a group match that confirmed Leicester as qualifiers for the last-16 – albeit probably in third place behind the title contenders Bordeaux-Begles and Toulouse in Pool 1 – was to ponder a flip of the customary narrative on its head.
Maybe we should ask not what Steward can do for his country and ask instead what his country can do for him.
When Leicester worked Steward into the right attacking positions, and he was carrying in 20-metre bursts to tie in defenders while maintaining continuity, or whipping 20-metre scoring passes off both hands, we saw the fruits of the hard work he has been doing on his attacking play – and the perception of a one-trick pony melted away amid the sub-zero chill.
“Certainly not by us,” said Michael Cheika, when the Tigers’ head coach was asked post-match if Steward is unfairly pigeon-holed as a high-ball specialist – and the club’s captain Julian Montoya, sitting alongside, frowned and shook his head at the suggestion, too.
“His ground work this year has been incredible,” Cheika said of Steward.
“That does not mean unbelievable, because that’s the quality he has as a player – I see it, so I expect that from him, and he expects it of himself. You see that in the way he carries the ball back and the decisions he makes.
“We see him more as an attacking player than as an aerial player. The aerial thing is probably the reason why he plays full-back, otherwise he could be playing somewhere else. He is doing good.”
Steward had “100th appearance” stitched on the breast of his blue Leicester jersey, and when you note he has 35 caps for England, too, at the age of 24, it shows how much he has packed into a still developing career.
From his England debut in 2021, he played 28 Tests without missing one.
But a red card against Ireland in Dublin two years ago, although it was subsequently overturned, was the start of a rockier period, in which he lost his automatic place at the 2023 World Cup, with Harlequins’ Marcus Smith and Northampton Saints’s George Furbank offering England a different, more fluid way of running and linking – the hybrid No 10 and 15 approach used, for instance, by New Zealand with Beauden Barrett and Damian McKenzie.
Player of the Match Freddie Steward speaks after victory for @LeicesterTigers 🐅
“I love this club, you know, it’s home for me.” 🗣️#InvestecChampionsCup pic.twitter.com/JsIdAaHwIP
— Premier Sports (@PremSportsTV) January 11, 2025
The cares of a career going less smoothly became etched on a face less fresh than when Steward made his first-team debut almost exactly five years ago.
England head coach Steve Borthwick laid out to Steward in a meeting last month where he needed to improve, after just one autumn start against South Africa.
Steward told The Rugby Paper he had tended to “wait on the edge for the magic to happen” – and that is not how Cheika and Tigers’ attack coach, the former Premiership full-back Peter Hewat, see the game.
Now Furbank is likely to miss at least the first two Six Nations matches with a broken arm, while the prospect of Smith as the last line of defence away to Ireland seems to force the “sheesh” of a doubting intake of breath between the gritted teeth of every pundit.
At 6ft 5in, Steward is tall; we get it. The worry is it takes a while for those long legs to engage full pelt, in attack or in cover defence, and at the top level those extra seconds sometimes do not exist.
Ulster, who were depleted in the backs even before full-back Ethan McIlory jarred a knee horribly in the first half, gave Steward three high balls he dealt with typically imperiously, with a safe catch and turn of his body on landing to present his side with clean possession.
For one catch the challenging wing Werner Kok bounced off Steward like a rubber ball thrown against a wall. For another, Ulster had two kick-chasers up quickly but they made no impression. In these circumstances, the tweaked law permitting greater access to the catcher was no impediment.
In attack it took Leicester too long, by their own admission, to find proper cohesion, but when it arrived, the fly-half Handre Pollard and friends used Steward from deep-lying positions to generate the momentum he needs in his running and sidestepping.
He also entered the three-quarter line in classical style to outflank a woeful Ulster defence that was more “fall apart” than “up and in” – it gave up five tries to the Leicester wings Josh Bassett and Ollie Hassell-Collins, plus another by centre Izaia Perese.
A handling fumble for a kind of self-nutmeg, and a clearing kick out on the full, were brief glitches by Steward. And Ulster were unable to drag him side to side in the backfield in the way Ireland surely will.
Norfolk-born Steward is a Norwich City fan, so their FA Cup thumping by Brighton earlier on Saturday must have been a downer.
His own performance was the opposite, with 101 metres made from 19 carries, and he was Premier Sports’ man of the match.
“I even got a conversion in; that wasn’t in the plan,” a smiling Steward said of a quality touchline kick while Pollard was about to be substituted in the second half.
And on his greater attacking range of late, Steward said: “I always want to push myself – there is a lot of work that still needs to be done. But I’m really enjoying it at the minute.”
Borthwick will announce England’s squad for the Six Nations at Twickenham on Tuesday, with a training camp in Spain the following week.
In between, Leicester complete their Champions Cup pool with a trip to the holders Toulouse, and Tigers must decide whether to chase a possible home draw in the knockouts with an underdog upset, or settle for third place.
“We’ll give them a go,” Steward said, with another smile acknowledging both the upward step and his own rediscovered pep.
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