Amid the confusion one thing is clear from the eventual denouement to this sorry saga, which must rank among the most ineptly handled in sporting history: no one wins.
Not Sam Burgess, the hugely talented 26-year-old now heading back to the warm bosom of his family, a club, a city and a sport in which he is revered after only five Test matches in rugby union.
Not Stuart Lancaster, the England coach who suffered a kind of paralysis of decision-making on the eve of the World Cup and has spent the past fortnight walking the hills considering his future.
Not Andy Farrell, the England backs coach who once switched codes himself and was seen as one of the main proponents of Project Burgess within the setup.
Not Mike Ford, his coach at Bath. And certainly not Luther Burrell, the man sacrificed for a last-ditch experiment on the eve of a tournament that was four years in the planning and, according to the Rugby Football Union, was supposed to be the most important for English rugby since 1823.
This World Cup was supposed to show how “connected” English rugby was to the country and to its public. It did not quite work out that way. As soon as Lancaster named Burgess first in his final 31-man squad, then in his matchday 23 and then made the decision to start him in the pivotal game against Wales it was always going to define his tenure.
None of which should be taken to mean that Burgess deserves to be made a scapegoat or hung out to dry. Having become one of the best in the world in one code, it is to his credit that he struck out for a new challenge and set himself the target of helping England to the World Cup. He did not ask for his international career to be fast-tracked at indecent haste. He did not ask for the confusion over his best position precipitated by the fact he played at flanker for his club, Bath, and at inside-centre for England. Once included in the squad he did nothing but his best. When he was substituted against Wales, England were leading.
England did not crash out of their home World Cup because of Burgess but his selection did reveal wider truths about the decision making capabilities of his coaches.
If his rapid elevation caused disquiet within the England squad it was more down to the displacement of Burrell, a mainstay for the previous two years, and the belief that Burgess’s inclusion cut to the heart of an inherent lack of clarity over how Lancaster wanted his side to play.
It also played to the perception, fair or not, that a coach who had claimed to make his decisions on a coldly analytical basis as he worked methodically towards his final squad had abandoned that approach in exchange for favourites and gut feeling. Lancaster’s decision to thrust Burgess into the side always seemed a contradiction.
During those endless press conferences at England’s Pennyhill Park base, he claimed that he was drawn to his big game presence. But in defending other controversial selection decisions, he would endlessly argue that he had plumped for experience. It was, ultimately, too much too soon.
The treatment of Burgess also seemed to re-expose uncomfortable fault lines between the two codes – and all the geographical and sociological implications that go with it – that can sometimes feel unique to England.
It has hard to imagine New Zealand or Australia getting quite so worked up about the ancillary issues when the focus should have been on the player and how best to use his gifts (or not).
When Sonny Bill Williams was lionised for handing over his World Cup winner’s medal in the wake of a storming second-half performance in the final, his cross code history was the last thing on anyone’s mind.
Many rugby league fans who had idolised Burgess accused followers of union of first mistreating him and then making him a scapegoat when things went so badly wrong.
For their part, some rugby union followers were made to feel responsible for attacking an entire sporting culture when all they were doing was merely suggesting Burgess did not yet deserve a place in the squad. The idea that any right-thinking fan actively wanted him to fail was surely nonsense. The whole thing was unseemly, unhealthy and wholly avoidable.
For many, the Burgess saga will be the final nail in Lancaster’s coffin and indeed it is hard to see how he can survive as head coach following such a high profile failure of decision-making.
The review into England’s campaign rumbles on, with a target delivery date of 17 November. The likely outcome is that Lancaster will remain within the RFU setup but not as head coach.
Yet again the sorry conclusion of the Burgess saga makes a mockery of the decision not to make the review wider in scope to include issues such as the way in which his switch from league was handled, the overseas players rule that did for Steffon Armitage and the decision to hand Lancaster and his backup team contracts until the end of the decade.
Could Burgess have gone on to become a better player for club and country if he had stayed at Bath? Undoubtedly. Can he be blamed for not doing so amid ongoing uncertainty over who the next England coach will be and now that he has become the lightning rod for the criticism that engulfed England’s World Cup failure? No.
Ultimately, it was hard to disagree with the 2003 World Cup winner Will Greenwood in his blunt assessment once the news broke on Thursday. As a sport, he said simply, rugby union had “let the lad down”. Burgess did not fail, others failed him.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com
