Would it really be such a bad thing. We are not going to be doing anything for a couple of years so let him go and get some experience before coming back to join us when we should hopefully be ready to challenge for honours again.

As long as we bring in Gary Hetherington to draw up the contract.

Knowing our luck it'll actually be Heath Ledger.

I am pretty sure Burgess is the type of player who would like to test himself in the NRL. I would expect it to be in 3-4 years time though rather than right now. We seem to have struck up a bit of a relationship with Manly so they may well have the inside track on his signature.

I sure Menzies will be back there at some point, linking up with him again would no doubt be a lure for Sam.

Going to the NRL is all very well but Burgess is still a kid who's yet to prove himself as a consistent SL player.

Of course he'd look better in a better side than us but talk of NRL is premature IMO.

don't see how manly can offer l'estrange as part of a deal as he's out of contract at end of season anyway. Mention is made of a massive transfer fee. Think its just paper talk at moment, although I fully expect sam to go to NRL when his current contract expires.

just a thought though, we're pretty much setup in forwards for next few years with 4 props signed and a decent crop of 2nd rows coming through. would it make sense to release sam to an nrl contract and get a big payday, which we could use to pay transfer fees to sort the backs out? Thinking like we did with newlove deal, which people screamed about at the time but in retrospect allowed us to bring in the players which laid the foundation for our period of success. If it allowed us to attract a couple of top backs like myler and shenton ( not that i'm suggesting those players in particular) would it be worth loosing a top forward out of an already good forward pack in order to get some quality into the backs?

In a word no.

Selling Sam to gain funds would be a huge mistake in my opinion. It would send out totally the wrong message. We should be looking to build the club around someone like Sam not cash in for short term improvement.

I don't think it would be, Sam's the best player that we have got and will be for the next few years. Releasing him would drastically reduce our impact in the pack. We don't have to pay anybody any transfer fee's we;ve just got to grab the correct player in the OOC free for all.

We'd struggle to replace Sam and there's nobody in our pack that's as good, with Menzies and Morrison on their last round, it would be a terrible terrible idea to even contemplate selling Burgess. I would send my ticket back if we sold our prized asset.

Do you have a link for this story by the way, I can' find it anywhere.

Personally I think the first thing that he needs to do, with the coaching staff, is identify his best position and stick to it as much as he can.

If he keeps switching between the front and back rows he may end up being a very good player in 2 or 3 different roles, rather than a genuinely world class player in one - which I believe he could be given the right guidance and with the right attitude. The trend of utility players does little for individuals or the sport IMO, it's OK if they are just squad fillers, but the top drawer players shouldn't be used like that.

I agree, it's no good moving him two or 3 times per game, or even every other week, as soonas he starts to settle down he's up and moved about again. It's not doing him any good in my opinion.

was in todays daily star - so thats probably an indication of how reliable it is

I'd agree with this. From what I've seen of Burgess so far he has something of the Gareth Hock 'flat track bully' about him (no drug references intended) - looks like a world beater against mediocre opposition (including a poor Kiwi touring side), but seems to go missing in the bigger games.

I've no doubt he will be able to develop into a more consistent player but at the moment he should not be considered the finished article by any means. Playing in a better and more confident side would of course help him. I also agree that McNamara should stop moving him about - I suspect second row is his best position, but as Bradford are well-stocked in this department I can understand why he's not getting regular game time there.

Maybe he will end up at Real Madrid for £50m

A quality coach would recognise Sam's best assets, position and get the best from him. Unfortunatley Macca is a long way from being able to do any of this.