Alan Richardson this morning addressed Nathan Freeman’s omission from the side that will face Hawthorn on Saturday night for the Blue Ribbon Cup.
The 23-year-old midfielder’s storied drought of senior football was broken when he made his senior debut in Round 20 against the Western Bulldogs, before putting in a serviceable shift against the Bombers a week later.
“He’s actually a little bit stiff, ‘Freeza’,” Richardson said.
“We think his footy has been OK, and we were pretty keen to keep him going if we could.”
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The Saints’ senior coach cited the Hawks’ impressive height and the need to counteract their
“The reality is that the Hawks are playing a pretty big front half,” Richardson said.
“And it just means that it’s squeezed one of our mids out, and given they have (Isaac) Smith on the wing, (Jaeger) O’Meara and obviously (Tom) Mitchell, we’ve got to make sure strategically that we’ve got really strong match-ups.
“So ‘Freeza’ misses out, but the message to him is that we’re pretty pleased with what he’s done the last couple of weeks … he’s got to make sure that he goes back to the VFL and keeps building his game.”
The Saints will face the Hawks at 7.25pm on Saturday night to contest the Blue Ribbon Cup.
