Much as that disgusts me, I am quite happy for the RFU to continue to refuse to accept the blinding obvious if it means they will think twice about recruiting from RL & they continue to fail in major competitions.

How will he, though?

The only people who have been trying to blame Burgess are precisely those anti-league establishment figures, including some former players. The overwhelming opinion from reasonably unbiased people corresponds with the facts, namely that a very green Burgess did nothing wrong against Wales, was one of their better players, and England were winning and defending very well up to the point where he was substituted. Those are all facts.

He will only be seen as" a major reason" by a few strident biased trolls but they are not the writers of history.

It seems from what was said that the issue was and is much wider than Sam. It seems a case of lots of middle class bitches (rather like same so called men in office jobs). Despite all their talk of being a team seems they are not. That probably goes some way to explaining while by far and a way the best resourced union (in terms of finance and player numbers) are consistently inept on the field. England should win every RU contest at a canter but they don't understand how to play or coach their game.

His best comment is saying how Rugby Union never came close to testing his physical limits in the way that league does on a regular basis.

There simply wasn't enough involvement for him in Union. The ball isn't on play enough and when it is it's usually stuck under a pile of 12 players.

Looking forward to it all dying down and watching him get back to playing his game.

The thing that stands out for me is Stuart Hooper, his captain at Bath, advising him that it probably wasn't for the best for him to come in to training and say goodbye to his former team-mates.

That smacks of an air of jealousy and resentment within the Bath dressing room. Probably explains why despite Bruce Craig pumping millions into the club they're still no closer to regaining their European glory days.

To me it smacks of this guy Hooper being a pygmy.

I now see an England RU player saying (BBC Sport site) that he has lost all trust in his England team mates after something or other was leaked out. What a shambles Sam is well out of it.

Sam made every point that needed making extremely well in his Mail Online piece today. Just one other. Why do all the Unionists invent the idea that Sam got in the England RU squad in place of that Burrell? If anything, Sam was in there on merit but replacing that Tuilagi. It was that Slade who they picked instead of that Burrell.

Think it was Mike Brown and I think the shambles has just started, the England set up has just imploded and shown everyone in sport that Union is not a community sport but one hidden in chinese whispers and "watch your back" thought processes. I see Mike Ford has changed his tune and has now joined the band wagon saying Sam didn't have the stomach to play rugby union.
Sir Clive Woodward called it right a few weeks ago and called "England" a laughing stock and now we have the Teflon coated ex players and "traitors" in the camp carrying on there expertise in making scapegoats.

Ford would change his mind after SAm said he wanted to play centre (which I guess Farrell tapped him up for after the RLWC try) and not flanker.

Ford and his son coming out having a go as well as the Bath captain being a whopper must have convinced Sam Burgess he's made the right call in getting away Union. I presume Ford snr has the stomach for Union or is it that he likes the smell of cold hard cash?

Any chance of a cross code challenge anytime soon? It would be lovely to see Big Sam Burgess let loose on some of his 'former' pals.

If Ford has said the things being attributed to him then he really is pathetic in my view. What he also fails to mention is that it is what's the point in fighting for something and someone who is not worth fighting for?

He's a product of fine East Hull schooling.

Ford is a complete and utter prick. Hopefully his actions will mean no more top RL players going anywhere near any club he's involved with and his career dies as quickly a death as his credibility and reputation.

I don't like Ford targeting RL players, but to be fair Burgess has made him look an idiot by no doubt telling him he was going to stay with Bath right up until the last moment, leading to Ford making comments along those lines to the press (and possibly to Bath's owner as well), and by departing mid season when Ford has planned around having him in the team. Ford's comments come across as very bitter but I do understand them.

Similarly at first sight the Bath captain's actions in keeping Burgess away rather than a proper goodbye seem a bit childish, but in a team environment I think its quite understandable that you might not want the team's highest profile player coming in and saying "thanks for everything but this gig sucks so see you later".

I tend to think a lot of the hysteria in the RU media and amongst some ex-players and coaches is down to the fact that they simply cannot countenance that someone doesn't think RU vastly superior to RL and has the nerve to decide to leave as soon as he can.

I couldn't disagree more. The key thing about chess whilst in application it appears complex, the rules themselves are actually relatively simple and there's only limited technical structure: It's the combination of single moment simplicity into almost infinite options over time (with multiple moves) that creates true complexity, from human choices in this pretty unstructured environment. This is exactly like League, which is an options game rather than a routines/process game.

Union on the other hand has more in common with a highly complex, structured rules-based game like Dungeons & Dragons. The surface complexity and ongoing need for an outside reference or judgement as a result (the referee's interpretation of a myriad of technicalities) actually reduces the ability of the human actors to make choices, and create a complex hard-to-read outlook of future options.

Nobody would argue chess players are less intelligent than people who play Dungeons & Dragons. The same's true for League players - they need to be much more creative, planning moves multiple stages in advance, with multiple layers of options available at each stage. I wish people like Wilkin would make this point instead.