It takes a great deal to rock Sam Burgess. The adversity the 27-year-old has had to endure in the past 12 months would have broken many men, but as we meet in a five-star hotel in central London, Burgess sits proudly as captain of his country after a year that still seems scarcely believable.
The announcement that Burgess will captain England’s rugby league side in this autumn’s Four Nations was the climax of a tumultuous period for the forward. This time last year his dalliance with rugby union was coming to an end as the fallout from England’s World Cup exit intensified – now, he will lead his countrymen in the code in which he made his name.
That is some turnaround in fortunes, even for a player who has achieved so much in his career – but not even that can stir Burgess into displaying the slightest inkling of emotion. “I was cool when Wayne [Bennett, the England coach] told me I’d be captain,” he says.
However, the emotion is all too apparent when Burgess is asked what his father, Mark, would have made of such a monumental day for his son. Just when his rugby career was taking off as a promising teenager at Bradford Bulls, Burgess and his three brothers lost their father, who also played professional rugby league, to motor neurone disease.
Family is a big part of Burgess’s life; his wife and his mother were the first people he informed when he was told he would be England captain. Sometimes it is difficult to see sportsmen, particularly rugby players, as anything other than unbreakable warriors, but it is obvious what this would have meant for Burgess had the man he grew up idolising been alive to see it.
“He would have been over the moon, he really would,” Burgess says of his father. “Growing up when he used to coach us we spoke about it happening, but it was nothing more than a dream. To see it come to fruition is something I’m sure he would have been very proud of. He was over the moon when I debuted at Bradford so to make it and get to the role of England captain is something he’d have loved.”
Despite the time that has passed since his much-publicised return to rugby league last November, debate still rages about just how successful Burgess’s short stay in union was. To some he was a scapegoat for England’s shortcomings, to others he was a failure, but Burgess is clearly in a position where he is comfortable enough to share his own thoughts on the code switch which attracted so much attention.
“Everyone has got their opinion on what happened in rugby union, but I believe those opinions are a bit murky, whereas mine is clear on it,” he says. “I learned a new game from scratch and represented my country in a World Cup, and my time in the sport was filled with good memories.
“In my debut against France I had Owen Farrell at 10 and Henry Slade at 13 and we formed such a good combination – we did some good stuff together. I know the Wales game is the point people go back to but if you break it down, I think you will see that my contribution to the team was quite good.”
A superstar in the NRL with South Sydney after signing for them in September 2009, and England’s great hope at international level since his emergence with Bradford, pressure is nothing new for Burgess, which is perhaps why he is able to reflect on his time in union with such an assured calmness.
“The spotlight in Sydney was big before I went to union anyway,” he says. “The people within the camps and the teams know what really happened within the systems, and they know my contribution and attitude to both Bath and my country, and if you asked them I don’t think they’d question it. That’s why I can look back at it the way I do.”
As he begins to look forward, there remains a refreshing honesty about Burgess. Before leaving for rugby union in October 2014, when he joined Bath, Burgess had made league seem a breeze and crucially, for England’s benefit, he began to do the same again towards the latter stages of a difficult first year back with South Sydney.
However, that end-of-season form, during which he won two of the club’s biggest individual awards, was a far cry from the transition back into a league player, which Burgess admits was tougher than he suspected it would be.
“It was difficult to move back into rugby league,” he says. “It’s a tough game both physically and mentally and it’s difficult to get back into the psyche of it. I had a shaky pre-season with a couple of injuries and I didn’t hit the ground running, but as the season went on I felt I hit some good form and I found my feet.
“We had a tough year as a club which didn’t help but it taught me about how enjoyable it is to win. I’ll be a better player for this last 12 months: I think I’ve come back a better person and player.”
