Good to see him back in RL better for him to go back to Souths. If he stayed in UK he would be forever "failed RL" convert . He has been let down by his advisors someone should have told him straight he was not suited to the game at centre. There's not a RL fan in the world who would have picked Burgess as a back there is some arrogance on his part to believe he could cover the centre role. Best to go back to what he does best

I think a few RU pundits have recognised this as well. I am not sure I recall who it was, maybe it was Will Greenwood but someone of that ilk was tweeting England RU had let Burgess down massively.



I am sure there will be further scapegoating and talk of him never going to be good enough (a joke) or running away or whatever but I think there will a lot of people in English RU in general never mind at Bath who will recognise what an almighty mess they have made of this.

I also hope it might make a few RL players think twice about RU. We may still loose players to the NRL but that isn't as bad as lost from the sport entirely.

The trouble is I think any benefit we see with RL players put off RU will be short term. When you see how RU have left the RFL for dust once they went full time I am sure they will adapt and learn from this pretty quickly. Maybe they might decide to "grow their own" and not look to RL, who knows but the threat they pose isn't going away.

Interesting tweet from Phil Wilkinson last night that Shaun Wane had allegedly been seen with Sam Burgess on Tuesday. Make that of it what you will. There were rumours earlier in the year that Wigan had spoken to Sam Burgess about a possible move for 2017, but that was prior to the Sam Tomkins signing.

He wasn't being trained as a centre at Bath but as a flanker which to my mind is exactly the right position for him in RU.

The problem wasn't Bath but England RU who seemingly wanted him in the team at any cost. He wasn't ready to play as a flanker at international level so the idiots in England RU shoved him in at centre.

This is why I agree with JJ about Bath being so fed up about this. England doing what they did and the scapegoating that occurred after this fiasco obviously got Burgess looking long and hard at the way this was going and he's walked away as a result. What a way to screw things up by England RU!

One thing that has surprised me about all this now is the pundits, ex-players and majority of the RU press haven't turned on Burgess at all. quite the opposite in fact.

I would have preferred them all to be slagging Burgess off and hopefully make other potential code switchers wary about 'jumping ship'.

Maybe because (whisper it) Sam has to take some of the blame?

Bath didn't kidnap him and force him to play RU; he left of his own accord. I don't know what he imagined would happen to him in RU, he appears to have thought he could walk into the RUWC team with minimal delay (which he actually did, by hook or by crook). And then, hold the front page, it wasn't a roaring success. What a surprise!

Bath are playing him at his natural position. Which is fine. England played him at centre (where he had played for a bit, but was still a novice). He didn't do too much wrong as it turned out, and certainly can't be blamed for England's dismal showing. But I do wonder what SB's ideal scenario was, in his head, and how realistic that ever was.

And rest assured, he *will* be remembered as a "failed rugby league convert" by the English media.

Best read I've come across so far. fansonline.net/rugbyleague/article.php?id=33

Best read I've come across so far. fansonline.net/rugbyleague/article.php?id=33

Great to have him back and I think he can now set a realistic goal of winning a World Cup (or at least making it past the group stage).

This England side looks to be developing nicely. It's getting better all the time, our player pool looks to be increasing and he brings some much needed top level quality to our back row.

If the Kiwis and Australia can get over our pack in the next few years that is likely to contain Burgess x3, Graham, Hill, Lockers, Walmsley, Roby, Farrell, Bateman etc then they'll have done well.

We look to be building something with the potential to be pretty special at the minute.

Agreed (well, apart from Lockers, I think this will be his last international series). We are in very good shape

We have a real quality England squad now and it's going to get better.
All we need is a quality coaching staff.

I wouldn't have included him but he says he's planning on playing on for as long as he's being selected.

Fitness permitting he'll play in next years four nations and the World Cup going off his comments.