The best-laid plans, and all that. Sam Burgess should be in Bath by now, learning how to bind in line-outs and recycle possession in rucks. So while it would be stretching a point to suggest that James Graham did him a favour with that accidental head-butt that forced Burgess to play for the whole NRL Grand Final with a fractured cheekbone and eye socket, at least there have been some consolations.
It meant that Burgess was able to collect the International Player of the Year award, with which he will bow out of rugby league, in person in Queensland on Thursday – and that England’s coach, Steve McNamara, could also recruit him to help in the preparations for Saturday’s Four Nations opener against Samoa in Brisbane.
Burgess will present jerseys to the 17 selected players – including Tom and George, his younger twin brothers, who could remain mainstays of the England league team for a decade. Sam will doubtless be enjoying a few bonus days in the Queensland sunshine with his old league mates before wrapping up for a first winter splashing about in Somerset.
There will inevitably be some chuntering in league about dishing out further reward to a superstar who is crossing to the dark side but that’s the sort of smallmindedness that makes the game look sad.
Burgess has become a towering figure in league during the past couple of years and in 12 months has bounced back from the bitter disappointment of England’s World Cup semi-final defeat by New Zealand at Wembley – when he gave one of the great individual performances, leaving team-mates, opponents and even Sonny Bill Williams in awe – to make history with Souths.
He’s leaving league with huge dignity and a measure of reluctance – he would love to be able to achieve the respect and riches that are on offer in rugby union without having to mess around switching codes and learning a whole heap of fiddly new rules but don’t blame Sam for the illogical world in which we live.
It is a shame that the new rugby reality will inevitably reduce his standing in the ranks of league’s all-time greats. In terms of all-round ability, he would be up there with Ellery Hanley – this week named by Jonah Lomu as a boyhood hero, incidentally – Darren Lockyer, Brett Kenny, Wally Lewis, Andrew Johns, Mark Graham, Sonny Bill and anyone else in my lifetime. But Hanley, the only Brit on that list, had longevity – and, crucially, played in Great Britain teams who beat Australia. Burgess has never managed that. For a league lad, beating the Wallabies can never have quite the same cachet.
He may also struggle to win the more established and renowned international league award, the Golden Boot, which was founded by Harry Edgar’s Open Rugby magazine decades before the game’s International Federation decided to introduce one of their own. Voting for the Golden Boot will not begin until after the Four Nations series, giving rivals such as Graham, Greg Inglis and Cameron Smith the chance to storm past Burgess in the rankings – Sam’s best chance was probably last year, after the World Cup, when he missed out to the brilliant Kangaroo half-back Johnathan Thurston.
Hopefully he’ll be back in league sooner rather than later, to line up again for England with his brothers – and, ideally, from a league point of view, grumbling about what a tedious waste of time he found the rucking and mauling code. But for the moment, Sam, thanks for the memories – and enjoy that last bit of sunshine. It’s pretty miserable here.
