'You ask any of those other 7 centres if I was gifted a spot in the that squad'
Sam Burgess has said that his ‘face didn’t fit’ in rugby union and it resulted in him being scapegoated for England’s disastrous 2015 Rugby World Cup pool exit.
Burgess also believes his shipping the blame for the loss was part of a wider press agenda that wanted to see his time in the fifteen man code end in failure.
The 33-year-old has recalled how he made the decision to play rugby union after being hounded by the Australian press after a high shot on Kangeroos star Sam Thaiday in October, 2013. The Dewsbury native first promised Hollywood A lister and South Sydney Rabbitohs boss Russell Crowe that he would win him a NRL Premiership before going to England and switching to union.
“I got approached by a couple of people and came back and said I’m going to play rugby union,” Burgess told the James Graham’s The Bye Round podcast. “I had already said in my head that I’d signed to play rugby union but give me one more year. Russell [Crowe] said are you mad? I said no, I’m going at the end of the year. I’ll finish this year though and I’m going to win the [NRL] Premiership.
“He said you’re mad, you can’t promise me that. I said I promise you I’m going to win.”
Burgess delivered Crowe his fairytale ending, with the Rabbitohs going on to win the 2014 NRL Premiership.
“I was 23 or something and looking back, it was a really irrational way to act. I always say I don’t regret too much in my career. I experienced a lot of cool things in that 12 to 16 months [in rugby union]. Did it slow me down a tiny bit? It might have done. But also it stopped me doing something that I would have done later in my career anyway.
“I’d first moved over, I’d never player rugby union in my life. Not even a game. I’d signed on the biggest contract in the Premiership, which I never really cared about. Everyone else seemed to care about it.
“Money to me wasn’t a thing. Never was, never has been. Money is part of being successful.
“I didn’t care because I understood the bigger picture. Going to rugby union, they want that. I don’t think they had a salary cap, well, I didn’t feel like they had a salary cap. They paid me a lot of money to do not a lot.”
Bath appeared to be surprised when Burgess turned up with out any understanding of rugby union’s laws.
“When I landed my face was like a dropped pie. I was like ‘Who’s going to teach me how to play?’And they were ‘You don’t know how to play?’ I was like ‘I don’t know the rules’.
“I was like ‘Let’s get started’ and they were ‘Well, you can’t really do much’. So my face was like a dropped pie.”
Burgess was then put on a fast track learning curve – both on and off the pitch – to accelerate him into contention ahead of the 2015 Rugby World Cup.
“I was put back six or eight weeks. I’m on the back foot here. Kyle Eastmond was playing at Bath. We played as kids. I came through junior rugby league system with him. He was great for me.
“I had a South African guy named Francois Louw, played 50 caps for the Springboks. Amazing guy. One of the great people at the club who were willing to help me.
“When it came to me playing my first game, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. Fast forward 10 games in, I’m playing Monday night for the reserve grade, playing 60 minutes at flanker. Saturday first grade on the bench at inside/outside centre. No one sees all that stuff.
“Then I go and study. I studied the game inside out. I got my own psychologist who would do visual hypnosis. Don Macpherson, he’d worked with F1 drivers. He talks them through the tracks, and it like they practice for 10,000 hours. I used to chat with the guy weekly and we’d go over the game and where I could improve on to accelerate my learning.
“By game 12 to 15 I’m playing flanker for Bath. We’re going well, we’re beating everyone. We’re top of the league. We make the Premiership finals against Saracens, and we lose by about ten points to Saracens who are carrying Maro Itoje, the Vunipola brothers and Owen Farrell. They’re like the gun team and we lost by like six or ten points in the Prem Final.
“I’m thinking it’s not a bad start.”
“I get picked up in the 54-man England training squad as a centre and I go alright, I have to go back to the start again as a centre. Now that’s what they want, they don’t want me as a flanker.”
Once in England camp Burgess backed himself to make the World Cup squad and he ultimately won over then England head coach Stuart Lancaster.
“I go into this training camp – a three month training camp. I figure out there are eight centres in the 54-man squad and they’re only taking four. I was like ‘Let’s go. I guarantee I will be in that four.”
“My training, preparation, competitiveness, there’s no way I don’t make that team. One of those was Kyle. Kyle missed out. There was all these other centres. At the end of the day I was there to get in that team.
“You can’t hide in those camps. It’s funny people say you went over there and you gifted a spot in the squad. You ask any of those other seven centres if I was gifted a spot in the that squad.
“There’s no way they’ll say I was gifted a spot. Because I had to compete with them for three months.
“I’m a competitve guy. I’m making that squad.
“So then I made the squad and then the games came around and we beat Fiji the first game. I was on the bench. I came on with about 20 to go and added a bit of something to the team. A few runs, a couple of offloads.
“We play Wales the next week and he starts me at inside centre. They have Jamie Roberts who’s some big guy, but he’s just like a normal NRL player. He’s supposed to be this big fierce runner, but he wasn’t interested in contact. I think I hit him a couple of times in the game, I don’t remember him so much.
“We played the game I didn’t do a great deal. It was just a normal game of footie. We were leading by 10 and they took me off with 20 minutes to go.
“They bring George Ford on and Jamie Roberts starts running over him and we lose by three. And that was it.
“So much goes into that. At the end of the day my face didn’t fit.
“Of course I made a few errors in the game but we were leading by 10. I’m sure there were players who played the game their whole lives and made errors in the game.
“It’s one of those things, the press had an agenda or other people had huge agendas.
“I did figure out that the politics in English rugby union was huge, from inside out. Players didn’t want to see someone else succeed.
“Some of the old players that had succeeded didn’t want to see a new team succeed. I found it all kind of strange, because as a patriotic Englishman, I think if you’re English you’re English.
“If you support England, you support England, that’s the way it is. In English rugby league we just all get behind everyone. It’s like ‘let’s fail together, succeed together, whatever, but we’re together,’ but in union I didn’t quite feel that. So after that World Cup campaign I couldn’t work for those guys anymore.”
“So I ended up coming back… with a load of money in my back pocket.”
Comments on RugbyPass
Why cant I watch Rugby games please?
1 Go to commentsBeautiful shot from Finau, end of story. Gutted for Shaun Stevenson though.
4 Go to commentsThe Chiefs definitely didn’t win ugly. They had the superior scrum, a dominant lineout, and their defence was excellent once the Waratahs scored their two tries (thanks to some lucky refereeing calls mind you). They put pressure on the Waratahs lineout throughout the game, and the mind boggles as to why the referee did not award a yellow card or a penalty try against the Waratahs for repeated scrum infringements on their own try line before Narawa’s first try. And the Chiefs were slick with their passing and running angles on attack. It was a dominant performance all round, even with many questionable refereeing decisions.
1 Go to commentsWasnt late. Ref 2 assistants andTMO all saw it so who are you to say it was?
4 Go to commentsAre the Brumbies playing the Blues twice in a row?
4 Go to commentsBig difference from the Saders. Forwards really muscled up and laid a solid platform. Scooter brought some steel and I liked the loosie combination. Newell has been rather disappointing this season but stepped up big time - happy also to see Franks dot down. He should do that more often! Reihana had a good game and there seems to be more flair and invention with him in the saddle. McNicoll plays well from the back and is reliable plus inventive when he joins the line. Keep it up chaps!
3 Go to comments🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
30 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
4 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusaders , you can keep going.
3 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
30 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
30 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
30 Go to comments