The text message that sparked Sam Burgess' return to NRL's South Sydney Rabbitohs
Date November 6, 2015 - 10:28AM
Brad Walter
Sports Reporter
A simple text message exchange between Sam Burgess and South Sydney coach Michael Maguire about the 2015 grand final between North Queensland and Brisbane was the catalyst for the "homecoming" of a player already considered a Rabbitohs legend.He is a legend for our club, he has a presence about him and he is a leader
Souths CEO John LeeBurgess, who felt he had been made a scapegoat for England's Rugby World Cup elimination at the hands of Australia just hours earlier, told Maguire how much he enjoyed the NRL decider and what a disappointment it was that Souths weren't able to defend the premiership they had won the previous season.
Close: Michael Maguire talks with Sam Burgess in training in the Rabbitohs' premiership-winning season.
Photo: Getty Images
The grand final had revived fond memories of the emotional scenes as he was chaired from ANZ Stadium after ignoring a fractured eye-socket sustained in the opening tackle to inspire the Rabbitohs to their first grand final win in 43 years - and the reaction of the club's fans.
It was a contrast to the ugly fallout from the Rugby World Cup, where he seemed to wear the brunt of criticism for England's failings, and as the text messages continued between Burgess and Maguire, a plan was hatched for him to return to Souths next season rather than 2017 as previously intended.
The fact that it took a month for the deal to come to fruition shows how reluctant Bath were to let the 26-year-old go. Club coach Mike Ford gave him two weeks off to consider his future, but after building a relationship with the club during negotiations for his switch to rugby union 12 months earlier, Souths were confident Burgess would be released.
Whether it was for next season or the year after had been the subject of heavy negotiating, and details of the agreement are still to be finalised, but Burgess was never going to play anywhere in the NRL other than the club where he is now held in the same esteem as Clive Churchill, John Sattler and Bob McCarthy.
"He is a legend for our club, he has a presence about him and he is a leader," Rabbitohs CEO John Lee said.
"Even the ghost of Jack Gibson would probably be looking down from heaven at the moment and saying 'that kid, he can play'. If he was still around he would probably say how good it is for rugby league because Sam is a great player."
The Rabbitohs have effectively had to return the transfer fee Bath paid to them, reported to be £500,000 ($1.064 million), and need to make further adjustments to their salary cap - despite having already released Issac Luke and Glenn Stewart - but the value of Burgess to the club was highlighted by his absence this year.
After beating Canterbury in the 2014 grand final, Souths limped into this year's play-offs in seventh position and were eliminated by Cronulla in the opening weekend.
Statistics published by Fairfax Media just before the end of the regular season showed that Burgess was the Rabbitohs' forward leader in every sense of the word.
He handled the ball more than any forward, with the exception of dummy half Luke, and dominated the statistics across the entire Souths team for the number of runs, metres gained and offloads per match.
Burgess, who will return to Sydney within coming weeks ahead of his wedding in December to Australian fiancee Phoebe Hooke, also made the players around him better and the leadership and on-field presence of one of arguably the game's most dominant forwards was sorely missed this season.
The decision of brothers George and Tom to extend their contracts until the end of the 2018 season was a significant factor and Sam is also now committed to Souths for the next three years after a stint in English rugby union, where he was made to feel like an outsider because of his northern England rugby league background.
Burgess will also be re-united in Sydney with brother Luke, who plays for Manly, and mother Julie, while he will be welcomed back to Souths by not only Maguire and his team-mates but the fans whose passion Burgess has always embraced since joining the club from Bradford in 2010.
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