{"id":331671,"date":"2025-12-23T14:41:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T14:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/331671\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T14:41:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T14:41:14","slug":"rejuvenated-freddie-steward-rising-to-the-challenge-after-contract-snub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/331671\/","title":{"rendered":"Rejuvenated Freddie Steward rising to the challenge after contract snub"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Freddie Steward is showing himself to be no one-trick pony as he seeks to prove to Steve Borthwick<\/a> he can be England\u2019s long-term answer at full-back.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old faces a renewed battle with George Furbank<\/a> for the jersey in the Six Nations<\/a> with the Northampton<\/a> man back in action again after injury issues.<\/p>\n

It was Furbank rather than Steward who was handed an enhanced EPS contract by the England<\/a> head coach in August because of his superior creative game.<\/p>\n

However the Leicester<\/a> full-back\u2019s coach Geoff Parling<\/a> feels Steward has come on leaps and bounds in that area.<\/p>\n

Steward topped the metres made statistics in Friday night\u2019s win over Gloucester<\/a> with 124 and stands fourth in the league\u2019s overall list this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s a great attacking player,\u201d said Parling. \u201cHe\u2019s good defensively and under the high ball so I\u2019m pleased with Freddie \u2013 he\u2019s really pushing on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he just did the simple things really well at the weekend. If you look at two of his breaks, first of all he did his core role in terms of his high ball catch, which we all know he is excellent at, carried square, had the ball in both hands, exploited a hole and used his vision to give simple passes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the basics done really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Player Carries <\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

\"Team <\/p>\n

Joaquin Moro<\/p>\n

13<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

\"Team <\/p>\n

Charlie Atkinson<\/p>\n

12<\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

\"Team <\/p>\n

Freddie Steward<\/p>\n

11<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It was the continuation of a theme with Steward \u2013 who started three of England\u2019s four autumn Tests in Furbank\u2019s absence \u2013 also in the top ten for defenders beaten and try assists in the PREM this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s no shying away from it \u2013 the attacking side of the game probably hasn\u2019t been a strength over the past two years so it has been a challenge for me to try to add another string to my bow,\u201d Steward told TNT Sports after the Gloucester game.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me it\u2019s more a confidence thing. It\u2019s getting my hands on the ball and wanting to beat defenders and just playing with a smile on my face.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve probably been shoeboxed a bit with my high-ball stuff and it\u2019s nice to be able to show another side of my game and that I\u2019ve been working hard and hopefully people can see that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steward has benefited from Leicester\u2019s upturn in form and a willingness to expand their game to a degree.<\/p>\n

They have scored 20 tries in their last four PREM games which have brought four successive wins.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a very simple game plan at the start of the year and we\u2019re trying to evolve that as we push on,\u201d said Parling.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019ll ever be a team that holds the ball for as many phases, as for example, Bristol<\/a> do in their own half but I want players to play what they see.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want us to be efficient at times but I give them the framework to play heads-up rugby and we\u2019ll work on them to improve that decision-making.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Freddie Steward is showing himself to be no one-trick pony as he seeks to prove to Steve Borthwick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-331671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}