Hard-luck Freeman finally has his chance

NATHAN Freeman was going to leave no stone unturned in pursuit of the AFL career it seemed the football gods didn’t want him to have.

It didn’t matter that those stones were scattered around the globe, around Australia, and even around Victoria. It didn’t matter that one of those stones was a masseur known as “Dr Death” — real name Garry McDonell.

Freeman makes his AFL debut for St Kilda tonight, his second AFL club, after two injury-cruelled seasons at Collingwood where he was drafted at No.10 in 2013.

The injuries, particularly hamstring issues, followed him to St Kilda after the Saints brought him in, despite not having played a game, at the end of the 2015 season.

All that time Freeman, 23, has watched on as members of his draft class won premierships (Tom Boyd, Marcus Bontempelli), Rising Star Awards (Lewis Taylor) and plenty took their games tallies past three figures.

Instead of playing he was travelling to Germany, seeing a specialist who treated Usain Bolt, to the Australian Institute of Sport, to Donald in country Victoria and then to see Dr Death on the Mornington Peninsula. He would get himself right, play in the VFL, then break down again. If it wasn’t his hamstrings it was something else.

Freeman should have played last year but hurt his ankle. This year he hurt his shoulder too.

But finally, with his body management “down pat”, he has put together seven straight VFL performances, enough for coach Saints coach Alan Richardson to give him a go.