Less than 10 months from the World Cup and just 10 weeks before England kick off their Six Nations campaign in Cardiff, Sam Burgess got his first, brief taste of competitive rugby union on Friday night. Just two touches.
The 25-year-old, destined it seems to play for England, although where and when are another matter, ran on to The Rec with 17 minutes to go and, after a short discussion possibly about where he should stand, made an immediate impact thudding through a couple of tired tackles.
By then Bath were top of the table, seven points ahead in the game – it could have been many more – and the hooker Ross Batty was about to be driven over for a third try. Harlequins had three men in the sin bin, including two props, one of them a replacement.
After more chat the new boy moved to inside-centre, getting his hands on the ball for a second time and looking totally at ease with his new surroundings as he passed out of the tackle, whereas Bath were starting to run riot in the rain, Leroy Houston driven over for the bonus point with six minutes to go.
The final Burgess move was to fly-half for the final seconds. Not much involvement considering the buildup, but an ice-breaker nevertheless. “The monkey is off my back now,” Burgess said. “Now it’s a question of piecing everything together and learning about the game. I’ll feel my way into it.”
The plan now is for a few more starts from the bench, probably in the centre, but possibly in the back row if the weather stays fine. “Then as the weeks go on I’ll just do whatever suits. It’ll be a long time before I know this game inside out.”
Burgess’s previous touch of a rugby ball, other than in training, was in front of more than 83,000 when South Sydney Rabbitohs clinched the NRL Grand Final last month. However, a legacy of that win was a damaged cheek and eye socket, fractured in the opening minute.
Initially it looked like delaying his Bath debut until probably late December but then the head coach, Mike Ford, surprised everyone, none more than Stuart Lancaster this week by announcing that, with no second XV games left, he was fast-tracking Burgess into Friday’s matchday squad.
For the England coach the news must have come as quite a fillip during an autumn campaign of mixed fortunes and Tests dogged by the debate surrounding who will be wearing the England No12 shirt when the World Cup kicks off against Fiji.
Against Quins, Burgess stood alongside one candidate in Kyle Eastmond, who started against the All Blacks and South Africa before being deemed surplus to requirements, the same fate which befell the Bath wing Semesa Rokoduguni. With Matt Banahan and Jonathan Joseph also starting the Bath three-quarter line had something of an England past, present and probable feel to it. And long before Burgess made his appearance it was three of those England players, plus the Argentina international Horacio Agulla who made the first mark on the game, swift hands seeing Eastmond and Joseph fix the Harlequins defence before Banahan slid into space to take Agulla’s final pass. Twelve minutes later Eastmond and Joseph were at it again, pulling the Quins midfield all over the shop before Ollie Devoto put Eastmond in with a clever offload out of a tackle. It cannot have been easy watching for Lancaster, apparently in front of a television at the England hotel in Surrey.
Devoto, a 21-year-old standing in for George Ford, could not make either conversion but the fly-half was showing plenty of confidence in pulling the strings for those around him. With the forwards looking far from shabby there is considerable depth to the pool of talent at The Rec.
The front row, with the 22-year-old Nick Auterac on one side and Henry Thomas on the other were also making life difficult for the Harlequins scrum, so they probably looked a little lucky to escape the first half only 10 points down, Devoto and Nick Evans having swapped penalties.
Bath Agulla (Burgess, 63); Rokoduguni, Joseph, Eastmond, Banahan; Devoto, Cook (Stringer, 54); Auterac (James, 63), Batty, Thomas, Hooper, Day, Garvey (Ewels, 32), Sisi (Fearns, 50), Houston.
Tries Banahan, Eastmond, Batty, Houston. Con Devoto. Pen Devoto.
Harlequins R Chisholm; Walker, Hopper, Casson, Tikoirotuma; Evans, Care; Lambert (Marfo, 35), Ward, Sinckler, Matthews (Twomey, h-t), Robson, Clifford (Collier, 57), Wallace, Easter.
Pen Evans 2.
Sin-bin Sinckler 54, Robson 58, Collier 61.
Referee W Barnes (RFU). Att 13,327
