Tommy Freeman

Tommy Freeman scores tries the way wings are supposed to and increasingly the way they are not — in the air, through traffic, and from the No 13 channel, where Northampton and England have both experimented with him. In the 2025 Six Nations he touched down in every round, a feat that put him in rare company in championship history and turned a solid international career into a headline one.

Freeman is the modern English wing template: big enough to win collisions, genuinely elite in the air — his one-handed take above a defender has become a Saints trademark — and schooled in a Northampton attack that asks its back three to appear anywhere. His kick-chase and contestable work make him a fly-half’s best friend, and his positional flexibility between wing and outside centre gives England bench options most nations cannot copy.

He is also part of the most interesting club story in England: the Northampton spine — Freeman, Fin Smith, Alex Mitchell, Henry Pollock — that won the 2023-24 Premiership title and now supplies England’s next generation. Playing his club rugby in that system means Freeman arrives in camp already fluent in the high-tempo shapes England have been trying to adopt, which partly explains why his international form has outpaced flashier names.

England’s fifth-place 2026 Six Nations dulled the collective mood, but the back three remains the area of genuine depth, and Freeman’s all-round game — carrying, kicking, aerial dominance rather than pure gas — is the profile coaches trust in tight Test matches.