There is nothing new about the launch of a Super League season being preceded by a leading player being linked with rugby union. Nine Februarys ago it was Andy Farrell, then rated the best league player in the world having been awarded the Golden Boot for his leadership of Great Britain the previous autumn, whose talks with Twickenham emerged days before his Wigan team began the season against Salford.
Now Farrell is doing the tempting, trying to lure Sam Burgess away from his glamorous lifestyle in Sydney with the carrot of playing for England in the 2015 union World Cup.
Burgess is a phenomenon, a more explosive player than Farrell ever was, having proved himself with South Sydney in the world's toughest rugby competition over the past two seasons, and it is easy to see why Stuart Lancaster, a Cumbrian with a refreshingly open mind towards league, would fancy the idea of him hammering the ball up from inside centre.
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His loss would be an undeniable blow, not to the Super League competition this time – there is no realistic prospect of Burgess or any of his three brothers returning from Sydney in the foreseeable future – but to the England league team, who offered a tantalising hint of their potential in the agonising semi-final defeat by New Zealand at Wembley in the World Cup.
Burgess was outstanding even by his own standards in that game, eclipsing the cross-code Kiwi Sonny Bill Williams by running for more than 200 metres, and as the England captain, Kevin Sinfield, said recently, the team performance was good enough to suggest that with Gareth Widdop selected at stand-off, and perhaps the emergence of a couple more world-class players, New Zealand and even Australia could be beaten in the coming years.
Without Burgess – whose move has yet to be confirmed, as Souths are in a strong enough position to play hardball in demanding a substantial transfer fee – that prospect would significantly recede. But 'twas always thus for British rugby league, at least for the two decades since union went openly professional.
Burgess's departure would have a tiny silver lining in illustrating to the consistently parochial Australians that even the appeal of their NRL can be outweighed by the lure of international competition. The Rugby Football League is facing criticism from some leading Super League clubs over its commercial dealings, but they would all agree that the only way they can respond to regular raids, whether from the NRL or union, is to maintain and even step up their investment in continuing to produce young players.
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The long-term television deal with Sky worth a record £200m that the RFL recently signed can be seen either way in this context. Its opponents, led by the Wigan chairman, Ian Lenagan, and Salford's Marwan Koukash, believe it has condemned the code to almost a decade in a financial straitjacket, which will deny leading clubs the opportunity of competing with union and the NRL for top players.
However, there is a plausible counter-argument that in offering financial security to Super League clubs and spreading more cash to lower levels to allow the reintroduction of promotion and relegation, the deal will strengthen league's foundations as well as allowing clubs to offer slightly more competitive wages to leading players. That was certainly the message of Eamonn McManus, the St Helens chairman, whose long-term plans were so badly affected by the loss of Kyle Eastmond to Bath two years ago, but who this week finalised a new four-year contract for Jonny Lomax, a 23-year-old full-back who would seem a more obvious fit for union than Burgess.
"I'm dealing in facts," he said. "We have created stability and security at a stroke. The re-signing of Jonny is a ringing endorsement of the strength of the game and its structure, that the best of British talent is committing long-term to the sport."
That may be a slight exaggeration, but it shows why the loss of Burgess, while a big disappointment, would not provoke the sort of gloomy introspection that Farrell's departure did nine years ago.
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