Confirmed by members first email from the club.

Let's pretend he's not a loss to the game and he's not very good anyway.

What a waste. Again.

Disappointed if I'm honest. In Andy Farrell, in Burgess and at losing such a talent.

Cannot see this working out for anyone. They talking about putting him in the centres! What a waste. He'll come back in a couple of years a much worse player as tends to happen with converts.

A shame.

The big question I have is does he really believe he can make the World Cup team with less than a seasons experience???

Where does this leave his brothers too? Will they stay at souths? Will they want to come back to England? If so, league or union?

This will upset quite a few in RL, particularly as it appears that Burgess himself has been particularly enthusiastic in sealing a move to play Union. What will be even more upsetting for some is one of the critical reasons for the switch is that he desperately wishes to return to England after 5 years in Australia, but not to play in Super League.

The obvious conclusion from all this is that he doesn't rate Super League very highly. If he's going to play RL then it's only going to be in the NRL in Australia. The only viable career option which satisfies his desire to return home to England is to switch codes.

And this has everything to do with Sam being desperately homesick and longing to come home to England? Nothing to do whatsoever with "being a cross code star" for whatever reason he has those notions *cough* sbw *cough*

You clearly believe Burgess is a cross code mercenary who graduated at the SBW school for mercenaries. Unlike you, I'm still prepared to give Burgess the benefit of the doubt on that one.

Fair play - the whole proceedings seem very strange to me! I think there's more than meets the eye to this one imo (so were both probably wrong!)

The fallout from this should certainly be interesting, and it's not even like he's disappeared from sight forever, he has to get through another year with souths yet - it could get ugly!

Poor old Quasimodo.

If he does ever make the cut and represent England he will get smashed senseless by the southern hemisphere sides.

It'll be very interesting to see how his final year pans out at Souths. I wouldn't be surprised if he quits (or is sent packing by Souths) earlier than planned. I wouldn't even be surprised if he's gone before the NRL season kicks off!

Huge loss to RL. It's a tough enough loss him playing down under in the NRL because his star quality was lost to Super League but at least there was the satisfaction of his international RL appearances. The switch to English Rugby Union goes way beyond any feeling of loss. Unfortunately, Rugby League as a sport is unable to provide him with the requisite big stage that his star quality merits.

Sad, but true.

He made the mistake of believing his own hype and considered himself bigger than Souths. Madge had a gutful of him and when he copped a fine he spat his dummy out.

He wont make it in union. He is no Sonny Bill.

To be fair, most of that hype came from the Aussie RL media with plenty of help from Russell Crowe.


Given his propensity for squeezing opposition players nads, I'd suggest Sam is already halfway there to making it in Union.

Questions like what will become of his brothers need to be answered as well - will they be vilified along with their brother? Released alongside him? Will they follow him to Union or stay in league? Lots of questions to be answered ...

I'd be slightly more inclined to agree if both world cups were imminently incoming (that's not to say I think our international game can match unions) but it might be more of a case of - failed at one have a go at another?

Big loss, but as with everyone, no one player is bigger than the sport.