Quote: BrisbaneRhino "Personally I think its great he's back in RL.
Isn't part of the problem that he was effectively a part-time centre in RL (albeit a pretty good one), who was always eventually going to move permanently into the forwards?
RU signed him as primarily a centre. From what I recall he had big pluses as a centre - big and quick - but didn't look a natural centre in RL either for the most part, despite the spectacular Wembley try (aided by some poor Leeds defence it should be noted).
I sincerely hope that Sam Burgess is a bigger flop, as it seems he's apparently been signed as a centre as well, with far less background than Tomkins (I don't think he's ever played in the centres - certainly not for Souths). The prevailing view seems to be that he'll never master the complexities as an RU forward.'"
He was always a 2nd row and he was Wigans best second row, who used to burst threw tackles all the time and ran better lines than Liam Farrell. Then Martin Gleeson decided he would have a meltdown and Madge fired him off so Joel had to cover as a Centre and did well but it wasn't his position.
Sam Burgess won't be a flop but what will happen is he will get bored and when he returns early he will get called a flop by people who watch barely any union and the Anti league brigade in union. It will take a naturally talented athlete like Burgess a year to learn union forwards skills but it won't matter anyway because if he puts in 28 tackles a game they will believe he is some kind of demi god. The biggest thing he needs to learn is how to read the game and how to clean out rucks and line out plays, because joining a ruck, mauling and scrumming is actually very simple for a open side flanker.
