Alledgely it was Lancaster who contacted Burgess first back in the summer of 2013. England were meant to part finance the move but other Premiership teams would've kicked off if the national team helped one of the Premiership rivals acquire a big name signing. Having sounded out Bath from the start, the Bath club were willing to take the ALL the financial risk, thus why they didn't have to follow England's wishes of continuing to pick him at centre.

Bath are upset because they bore all the financial burden, however they should've realised it was England who talked him into joining RU, not them. Thus why I agree with the earlier comment, I don't think any Premiership club will be rushing to sign an RL star for England's benefit anytime soon.

My personal belief is that SB *would* have been a Union star, and not in a million years - Just 2.

The problem for me was that it seems to have been England RU that really wanted him and Bath were just the recipient.

However, if he had come over at the end of our 2013 season, he would have had a full 2 years to learn, grow and be accepted in RU, in whichever position England wanted him to play, before being picked for the national team. I could even have understood if he had been given a run-out against Uruguay.

As it was, he was given less than 1 year, played in a different position to where England wanted him (IMO, England should have cahnged their thinking. Bath saw him every day in training) and was then shoe-horned in to England squad as a late addition despite him not being ready for it, didn't do too much wrong in the games that he played (just wasn't the instant game-changer that their fans wanted), then took ALL of the blame for the mistakes made right from the outset because he was/is an easy target.

I'm glad he's back in RL, as RU have shown me (yet again) that they could organise the proverbial in a brewery.

You were making statements. That's the danger, not knowing the difference.

I don't mind being quoted but not out of context. I was far from being the only one who said it.

The flank forward idea is a red herring. He was always going to be an inside centre. The fact is Bath pretty soon realised he couldn't play there. He also found that he wasn't involved enough. So he ended up at flanker by default. Lancasters big mistake was sticking to his plan and ignoring the evidence of Sam's early games for Bath.

Well we all might as well pack in posting altogether