Freddie Burns: I’m absolutely s----ing myself about being a coach
Freddie Burns: I’m absolutely s----ing myself about being a coach
Charles RichardsonWed, August 26, 2026 at 5:00 AM UTC
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Freddie Burns is returning to Leicester Tigers in a coaching capacity after helping the club to league success as a player in 2022 - David Rogers/Getty Images
This may come as a surprise given his Prem longevity and his reputation as one of the cheekiest chaps in English rugby, but there are not many more worldly players in the game right now than Freddie Burns.
A professional career beginning in Gloucester in 2008 has taken in stints at Leicester (twice), Bath, Shokki Shuttles in Japan (twice), the Highlanders of New Zealand, and, at the end of September, Burns’s playing career will end after a second season with Dinamo Bucuresti.
All being well, the Bucharest club will take part in the Romanian final on September 24 and that will comprise Burns’s final outing as a professional rugby player. A week later, with the fly-half’s kicking boots hung up, Burns will lace up the equivalent coaching pair. The 36-year-old is coming home, not to his birthplace of Bath, but to his spiritual rugby home, the club for whom he kicked the winning drop goal in the 2022 Prem final. From October 1, Burns will be the kicking and skills coach for Leicester Tigers.
Burns kicked the winning drop goal for Leicester in the 2022 Prem final - David Rogers/Getty Images
How is he feeling? The challenge of turning from player to coach in a week – much like Richard Wigglesworth did at the same club in 2022 – moving countries, to mentor players who were former team-mates. Surely, for someone as well-travelled, it must be water off a duck’s back.
“I’m absolutely s----ing myself,” he tells Telegraph Sport.
Or not, then! But, Burns does elaborate. Speaking from Bucharest, there are clearly nerves about this breach into the unknown, yet there is a confidence, too, that he will settle auspiciously into coaching life.
“Excitement is the main word,” he says. “I’m confident in the experiences I’ve had and what I can pass on to players who are coming through, but it will be a massive learning curve. What a brilliant opportunity to go back to a club I love. That group has done brilliantly over the past couple of seasons – a Prem final and a semi – so it’s an exciting one to be a part of, as well as historically the biggest club in the country. There is something special at Leicester. I was at Welford Road last week and just to be back there got the hairs on the back of my neck [standing up].
“But it is not wasted on me how big an opportunity this is and how fortunate I am to have an offer like this straight off the bat from playing.”
Geoff Parling, the Tigers’ head coach, and Burns crossed over for a season at Leicester as players during the latter’s first stint in the East Midlands, but the duo also wore the white of England together, most notably in the victory over New Zealand in 2012. Since, they have stayed in touch, catching up when Burns’s Highlanders played the Rebels in 2023, when Parling was the Australia forwards coach. Still, the call came “out of the blue”.
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Geoff Parling grilled Burns over numerous Zoom calls before confirming his post on the Tigers coaching staff - David Rogers/Getty Images
“About four or five weeks ago, my phone went on a Friday afternoon,” Burns explains. “I didn’t have Geoff’s number – I had his Australian one – so I was like: ‘Who is this?’ I answered and he asked whether it would be something I’d consider and excited to do.
“He asked me how I felt about it and I said: ‘Erm, underqualified would be the first thing, Geoff!’ He said I was probably right!
“No, obviously the process started out informally with Geoff asking me if I fancied it but then there were another two, three Zooms where he grilled me, like a job interview. It wasn’t a case of him calling me up and him asking if I fancied it. ‘Ah, yeah, sweet, see you there.’
“I was about to start negotiating a new playing deal but I feel ready to step away. I still love playing the game, but did I see myself going back to the Prem to play? Maybe I could have got a contract as a second or third choice? But a lot of players do not have the privilege of going out on their own terms. I’ve had such a great run at it, with some great moments, that I did not want to keep hanging on and maybe resenting it.”
Burns admits his future coaching style might be “more vibes than science”, more visceral than cerebral, but he knows that he must cater to a player’s individual approach. He recalls his time with the Tigers and how small stakes helped focus his mind.
“I had a nice message from [former Leicester team-mate] Ed Slater,” Burns says. “I told him about the gig and that I was nervous and he said: ‘Just go in and be yourself.’ I’m not being brought in to be straight-laced. I’d like to think that my personality and my energy is one of the reasons Geoff got in touch. I want to be a coach who players know will demand but also I will do it with a smile on my face and we’ll have a bit of craic. I want the boys to feel energy from me. But I’ll figure it out as I go. It’s unknown to me, currently. I’m definitely more of a vibey guy than a science guy, but there are fundamentals which are non-negotiable.
“When Geordan Murphy first went into coaching he’d bring the kicking tee on and we used to bet on chocolate or beers as to whether I’d get it. I needed that! People would ask what I was muttering to myself before I kicked and it was actually me saying to Geordy that if I missed I’d get him a couple of Double Deckers!”
If stakes were mandatory, then the Rec was a gambling-free zone in October 2018. Burns, playing full-back, celebrated a try too early, only to have the ball knocked out of his hands by Toulouse’s Maxime Médard.
“That moment made me,” he said. “I’m so thankful for it because it made everything so much sweeter afterwards. Weekly, I still get DMs from people sending me the video and calling me a w-----. It makes me laugh! The resilience it gave me and what I went on to achieve afterwards is probably my proudest achievement. I couldn’t be more at peace with it. I feel so thankful for the career I had, the highs and the lows.”
Before a third stint at Welford Road, there will be plenty more of those, hopefully, for Burns’s sake, of the former.
Source: “AOL Sports”
