Sam Burgess played on in National Rugby League Final in spite of fractured cheekbone
Bath’s cross-code signing Sam Burgess has been named on the bench for Friday’s Premiership game against Harlequins at The Rec. The 25-year-old arrived in the West Country a month ago but only recently resumed training after fracturing a cheekbone in his final rugby league game for South Sydney Rabbitohs. Coach Mike Ford has said Burgess is likely to come on at centre.
Quins, meanwhile, hand a start to Danny Care at scrum-half. Care, who was on the bench for the defeat by Sale last week, has been released from the England squad after again failing to make the cut for the final autumn international against Australia on Saturday.
Bath backs Semesa Rokoduguni and Kyle Eastmond will also start on Friday after falling out of Stuart Lancaster’s plans.
A win over Quins will see The Rec outfit move to the top of the Premiership table, but all the attention is likely to be on Burgess’s imminent union debut.
bbc
“He’s ready to play. His cheekbone is fine,” Ford told BBC Points West.
“We’ve been getting him up to speed with the game for the last three or four weeks.
“He’s still got a lot of things to learn but getting him involved in matchdays is going to accelerate that learning.
“We’ll see how the game unfolds and if we need to put him on we will do.”
Burgess, capped 28 times as a forward for England in rugby league, agreed to join Bath in February, on a three-year deal worth about £270,000.
He ended his National Rugby League spell by guiding South Sydney to victory in the Grand Final against Canterbury Bulldogs on 5 October – playing a full 80 minutes despite his facial injury.
Burgess has been training with Bath for three weeks and, although he is likely to make his debut at 12, Ford has said he will also be given the chance to play in the back row.
“Depending on the state of the game, we’ll decide where to put him on,” added the Bath coach.
“We’ve put him at 12 at training and he’s got a bit bored out there. He finds himself going towards the ruck, wanting to get involved.
“We’ve also seen him at six, seven and eight and he seems more comfortable there. Clearly there’s a lot more technical stuff he has to learn there so we might put him on at centre and let him look from afar.
“Maybe in his third or fourth game we’ll put him in the back row and see how he goes with that.”
Bath: Henson, Rokoduguni, Joseph, Eastmond, Banahan, Devoto, Cook, Auterac, Batty, Thomas, Hooper (Captain), Day, Garvey, Sisi, Houston
Replacements: Dunn, James, Palma-Newport, Ewels, Fearns, Stringer, Burgess, Agulla.
Harlequins: Chisholm, Walker, Hopper, Casson, Tikoirotuma, Evans, Care, Lambert, Ward, Sinckler, Matthews, Robson, Clifford, Wallace, Easter (Captain).
Replacements: Buchanan, Marfo, Collier, Twomey, Trayfoot, Dickson, Swiel, Turner-Hall.
Straight after England’s loss to the Springboks the commentators were pinning a lot of the blame for that loss on the England centres, and in the days after Clive Woodward also wrote stuff about England struggling at centre, with Tuilaggi and Burrell out they were without two big centres for them but I couldn’t help but think from the time I heard those radio commentators that they were (consciously or subconsciously) paving the way and trying to justify should it happen the fast tracking of Sam Burgess into the England team, especially for the World Cup. 6 Nations is a bit early but won’t be surprised if he is at least invited along to train with England.
Burgess has a lot to learn very quickly about Union, I am not suggesting that he won’t do well BUT it smacks of rank favouritism if you read Bath coach comments about how he is getting on in training and that they may try him at centre at first and then maybe at loose forward… this is professional sports surely he should be doing this at lower club level in the Bath area, what about the Bath player who misses out each time he gets a chance to experiment with where he will fit in best.
Looking at the video I included in the article for me he has a lot of adjusting to make on his tackling technique or else he should be carded a lot, note I say should and not will, just hope that the referees are consistent and blow him up just as they would all the other players, don’t want them having in the back of their mind that this is a prodigy who is still coming to grips with the laws each time he offends and being a bit more lenient. Maybe I’m just being a bit harsh as am perhaps a bit old fashioned and not that keen on seeing these players coming and going in our game, conveniently a lot of it seems to happen close to World Cups. After all I have a lot of time for Jason Robinson who came over from league and was fast tracked into the England team, but at least he stayed on and played through rest of his career in Union.
@ Bullscot:
Sam Burgess is a legend in these parts…however it is a massive gamble to fast track him… he hasn’t the ball handling skills of a Sbw…but he is a professional coupled with a motor that never stops…A true Beast of a man that will definitely make it in Rugby… just have doubst that it will be next year…
Looks like a good efficient stampkar(bumpercart) bulls type player 🙂
3 @ Bullscot:
You are 100% correct, his technique is very flawed for union.
@ MacroBok:
That’s what they said about Sbw…There are a number of players in RL that will kill it in Rugby…
@ Te Rangatira:
I am not sure how SBW played but from that highlight package (youtube videos can be edited to create any impression of a player I know) he looks like he likes to bash it up rather that look to off load. like Bullscot alluded to, Bath have no idea where to play him… they just want to play him. This kind of approach did not help guys like Benji Marshall.
Maybe Burgess like Marshall has such an ego that he refuses to play in lower rank club rugby?
@ MacroBok:
Nah… Surgess is awesome…his three other brothers are pretty good too especially Gurgess…Where’d you get the ego thing from regarding Benji??
I didn’t expect Benjoy to make it in Rugby because of his lack of a kicking game from the hand aND the tee…plus he had so many operations on his shoulders…I can tell you now Surgess will make it in Rugby..he’s young…big..quite skillful…and has a massive ticker… an x factor player who is considered the equal of Sbw in league… hope it translates to Rugby
@ Te Rangatira:
I think Kirwans plan with Benji was that he was not ready and that he should go play ITM rugby first… it then prompted Benji to go back to NRL, isn’t it?
I wish Burgess well obviously, it would really help England.
I checked now and it was Kirwans decision NOT to play Benji in the 2013 ITM cup, but Midway through the season
“Kirwan clearly ran out of patience and, at a meeting between player and coach, suggested to Marshall he either play the rest of the season in the lower tiers to help prepare him for the 2015 Super Rugby tournament or return to Rugby League.
Marshall opted for the latter but one can’t help but wonder why Kirwan didn’t insist on him playing in the ITM Cup when he signed Marshall for the Blues last year.”
@ Te Rangatira:
Do you think the issues around the scrum area will force more people into Rugby League as it has in Australia?
@ Te Rangatira:
Rugby League has started taking a tiny foothold in the North Eastern Part of the country (with a CLUB championship established in 2011 and a second tier competition starting last year, I think if and when it starts taking a foothold in the Western Cape it is going to explode in popularity.
@ MacroBok:
League has always dominated in NSW & Queensland…it’s seen as the working mans game in those States whilst Rugby was played in the private schools and couldn’t get the following in the suburbs… League has been professional for over 100 years and amateur Rugby couldn’t get traction… scrumaging didn’t have much to do with League dominating..there were other factors at play…. like money… marketing….leadership….governance…simplification of the rules…
@ MacroBok:
I heard the body running league is in partnership or under SARU…I stand to be corrected…
@ MacroBok:
I don’t rate Kirwan as a coach…even worse as a selector… Fekitoa a major blunder….
@ Te Rangatira:
I think simplification of the rules is also connected to the scrumming laws or even the rucks.
@ MacroBok:
Simplification revolves around ball in play…coupled with far less kicking…
@ Te Rangatira:
Simplification of the rucks mostly, it will always hold rugby back when referees and affect the outcome of quick/slow ball due to interpretation.
4 @ Te Rangatira:
Hi Te Rangatira thanks interesting to hear from someone who follows the game he has been playing. League is not a game I know much about so hard for me to judge the worth of players but from the limited footage of Burgess that I’ve seen he looks like a very powerful player and must be tough as nails to have carried on playing that final with a bust cheek bone. Thing is over here there seems to be a need for quick fixes so this is why I think he may be fast tracked, maybe whether he actually makes any England squad depends on how soon the likes of Tuilaggi and Burrell are available again. Seems like Rugby League flows through his veins with his 3 brothers Luke Tom and George also playing it, sounds like you rate them too, read his late dad also played league, sad that he passed away from motor neurone disease. Sam may not be as skilful as Sonny Bill then as you suggest but from that short highlights clip he still seems to manage to get passed away for others to score from as well as having huge ability to cross the gain line effectively on his own.
6 @ MacroBok:
Hi Macrobok he looks to have quite a broad range of skills, initially from the video clip thought he was a strong brute who could bust tackles with ease but later on you see that he also passes the ball to others to score although it didn’t look like anything sublime just the kind of passing into space you would expect from any player at that level but at least it shows he is anything but one dimensional. At 1.96m and 116kg he seems perfectly built for number 8 or 7 (SA’s numbering system) but at centre oh boy can you imagine having such a brute running full tilt at you. BUT you would have seen from my postings here that player welfare is vey important for me and if he is going to come with that manner of head high tackling without bothering to use his arms properly that you see through the clip then I think he will be a danger to other players and this is where I want the refs to be strict and not be lenient on him just learning his trade, thing is as they will probably want to see him progress to be able to play for England not sure whether the other Premiership coaches will be in the refs ears before games much about this aspect of his play as you often hear coaches are about various aspects about their opponents before games.
5 @ MacroBok:
No certainly think he looked more than just a stampkar player and also he comes with a lot of hype and excitement rather than us Bulls, remember us Bulls are mos boring
Bath comfortably beat Harlequins who were down to 12 men for a time in the game, final score: Bath 25/6 Harlequins so they are top of the table for now. Burgess came on at inside centre in the 62nd minute, not sure how well he played, should have had a look if could have watched this online.
This confirms what have been saying about folk wanting quick fixes, on report about tonight’s game: “Touted as a potential England prospect for next year’s World Cup, all the focus ahead of the Quins’ visit to the Rec was centred on the Dewsbury-born Burgess.”
@ Bullscot:
Hi Bullscot…. Surgess will make the England squad next year..that is what I’m predicting…of course it is a quick fix…but it is a risk that I’d be prepared to take… even if he was available for the Abs…
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