St Kilda’s high performance team believe that with some technique alterations, talented midfield recruit Nathan Freeman can get on top of his hamstring problems once and for all and prosper at the elite level.

“We’ll back our very senior and experienced medical guys through this process, who have given us terrific feedback all the way through,” GM of Football Performance, Jamie Cox, said at Christmas at Moorabbin on the weekend.

“They believe this is something, that with a few adjustments, that Nathan can beat and still have a long career.

“So, nothing’s changed in that regard, the guys are still very confident, despite a small hiccup, that he can still be a terrific AFL footballer for a long time for us.”

After an encouraging and diligent start to his time at Linen House Centre, Freeman suffered a minor hamstring setback last week.

The club remains confident the 20-year-old can beat the persistent hamstring issues that have dogged the early stages of his career, and forge a long career at the highest level.

The former No. 10 draft pick endured an injury plagued two seasons at Collingwood, where he didn’t manage to play a senior game, before requesting a trade to the Saints during October’s trade period. He will return to the Saints’ main group early in the New Year.

“It wasn’t a major mishap, (but) it was obviously disappointing for Nathan because he’d been training really strongly was starting to run at full clip again,” Cox said.

“Look it was a little setback, but Nathan starts running again Monday (today), and will do his rehab over Christmas with a view to hopefully getting into full training not too long into the New Year.”

Despite Freeman’s wretched run of luck continuing, Cox revealed that the midfielder was still in a positive frame of mind and had taken confidence from the block of training he has completed at the Saints.

“I deliberately went out of my way to make sure he was going fine. He’s in great spirits,” he said.

“He knows that he’s got a lot of good conditioning under his belt in the couple of months he’s been at the club.

“Everyone’s disappointed that he’s had a little setback, but he’s in terrific spirits. He knows that he’s taken some good strides forward, despite this. So he’s going well.”