I was just going to make the same point. I don't know what Burgess ambitions are beyond his Roosters contract but he'd better just skip playing for them at all and move directly onto that in case he gets injured playing for them.

I agree but the frustration is there doesn't seem to be any ambition to increase the amount of money in the UK game.

The "cost" of running an elite RL side is whatever the NRL salary cap is. If you can't pay that or at least pretty close to it you will always lose your best players to them.

In the long run this is not sustainable because if players as young as Burgess go then the old adage "we have had players leave and have survived" won't work any more as the best of the replacements will follow them out of the door.

Faffing about with the structure of the league and spreading the available money as thinly as we do does nothing to close the gap.

Well he's going now so no good dwelling on it, let's hope the 4 players they are talking to all sign, they're the ones we should be concentrating on....especially Hampshire!

Having just watched a lot of the NRL last season courtesy of Premier sports I am far from convinced that he will actually get a regular game for the Roosters. Whilst he is an exciting talent for sure, he makes a lot of mistakes. I think at one stage last season he made the most errors in Super League. Now, obviously he is young and should improve but I think that the NRL is a much less forgiving place to make errors. It could be a disastrous move for his career, though not his bank balance. (Although if he was on so little to begin with his Wigan salary would have been increased tenfold, not bad for a twenty year old).

Surely better advice would have been to do what Sam did. Give us five years and break all the try scoring records you can then go over as a star, not an inexperienced kid who has won nothing.

As to whether he should be picked now. You pick the best/most in-form 13 (17) available. However if Dom Manfredi gets his chance and takes it I would expect him to keep his place whereas if Burgess was staying that dynamic might change.

I'm genuinely delighted about Ryan Sutton. Waney must have high hopes for him. He seems to play without any fear at all. His first carry last Sunday he looked at Fuifui and went straight at him. Impressive.

Obviously it's a shame, but good luck to the lad. It's not the end of the world, if we are honest wingmen are probably the easiest to replace especially in our team where most of their tries come from basically catching and putting it down.

Let's not forget Manfreddi and Burgess were both being spoken about as competitors to replace Richards and I am sure he can do an excellent job for us.

I think some people think Wigan is the centre of the rugby universe. It's not. Talk of freezing him out etc is embarrassing. If he is playing well and earning his spot he needs to play. Manfreddi will get plenty of chances next year as well. There is no point cutting your nose off to spite your face.

The simple fact is the NRL is where any player with ambition to be the best they can be needs to go.

As an Internationalist over club affiliation I think it is a great move and helps England move closer to that all important series win.

Treat him poorly this year and we will never see him at Wigan again, we may not anyway but no need to burn our bridges.

Personally I would also love to see one of our young halves go to the NRL sooner rather than later as without a competative England side and credible International game we can never get more money and recognition into the game and this short term farming of our junior talent and inferior comp will be a long term problem.

There's a lot to this. Even with the omni-shambles that is Red Hall, a stronger international team can only benefit the game in the UK. The fact that his move is all over the BBC this morning may only be a result of their assumption that he's related to the other Burgess, but it's the sort of news that has to be pounced on and bigged-up by the the RFL (who's media team are based in Salford Quays anyway): and thus keep the game in the general conciousness.

We've an up-hill struggle this year anyway to get any air-time, but bickering & sniping at the lad for wanting to earn a wage won't help anyone. I'd love for all our kids to have the same "one-club" attitude of, say, SOL, who I suspect may well go on to be a stand-out coach/manager. But they're few & far between.

Good luck to the lad, said through gritted teeth because I'd really like to be a selfish tw*t & keep him for a while longer. But can anyone here genuinely say they'd not do exactly the same?

Players moved in both directions then as the seasons overlapped. GB were very competitive. Thanks to Micron Video all the Aussie games were available, pubs put on Aussie matches to full houses. Aussie RL magazines were on sale at Smiths. They weren't out of sight at all.

This deal was done a long while back and has been kept under wraps, same situation as with some of your previous players had been asked to take lower wage increases and play for the "Wigan badge"

Wigan offered Burgess a long contract but at low wages, he signed for Sydney last year when in OZ for the WCC.

What annoyed Wigan was he did not reject their contract and enter back into negotiations he signed with Sydney and didn't tell anyone.

When Wigan approached him and said what's happening with your new contract he then said im leaving as Sydney had offered 3 times more.

He was Pi***d off at what Wigan had offered him.

If all that is true - and I've no reason to doubt you - then it seems an odd way for the player to negotiate. At the time of the WCC Burgess was still an unknown quantity, and therefore couldn't expect a mega bucks contract.

After the season finished he would surely be in a better position to negotiate with BOTH Wigan and The Roosters. Actually he would probably been able to negotiate a much better contract with both had he waited - the impetuousness of youth.

If he did sign last February then he's been very short sighted indeed. Taking the first offer is just dumb. Or maybe he didn't have much confidence in his own abilities.

Again, if what you say is true - He's managed to shaft Wigan and himself all at once IMO.

Wigan were still in negotiations with Burgess mid season. Sadly they couldn't match the Roosters offer, well they could, but it would have blown a hole in their wage structure, which would have been poor business in the long term. I really hope he does well out there. He's a player I have admired since I first saw him in the U16's side but I do think he should have stayed at Wigan for another three years before moving, and only time will tell if he's done the best thing for himself and/or his career.

Rogues - Are you saying that 'Johnny Headline' is mistaken and that Joe didn't sign with the Roosters at the WCC? Or possibly your source may have been saying what he thought we, as fans, wanted to hear?

I'm saying what I was reliably told from an excellent source in June last year and someone who would definitely know what was happening.

There is already more to Burgess game to that which is why I think he is a big loss. His vision to put Farrell in for several tries after having made a break and then giving a perfect inside pass was a pleasure to watch and in one so young a mark of real talent IMO.



The idea we have to send players to play in the NRL because (the implication is) our competition won't produce a competitive England side is the wrong answer to that particular problem.

We never will be any good if the best players are elsewhere. I doubt we'll ever be able to pick an England squad made up of entirely NRL based players even if that were desirable (which I don't think it is) and so the ones who are left behind here play in an even more inferior competition. So while any player who goes may improve, the fact that they have gone means it's an easier game for the those left not having to face the best UK players in an even more inferior competition.

DaveO has a point with his last paragraph. Look how good the Kiwi team is, look how bad their domestic comp is.....

Cheers. Again, no reason to doubt you or your source.

It does seem an odd state of affairs. I understand why you and others wish him all the best. But whilst part of me wishes that too - part of me is annoyed at him and his advisers. This season will be a real test for him. The minute things start to go wrong (if they go wrong), he will be on a hiding to nothing with the fans.

It leaves me wondering how Leeds have managed to keep Ryan Hall (who simply must have had NRL offers) happy. His many international tries, often against Australia, plus Super League and Challenge Cup successes, have been enough for him.