Sam Burgess leaves South Sydney: Rabbitohs legend’s history remembered, inside tense meeting with club bosses
South Sydney made a last-ditch bid to keep Sam Burgess at the club, it can be revealed. Go inside his bitter exit and find out why Souths powerbrokers expect the club great will return one day.
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Sam Burgess walked out of South Sydney this week but few doubt he will be back.
Certainly chair Nick Pappas, who was front and centre at the club’s Heffron Park headquarter on Thursday and has known Burgess since he first arrived at the club more than a decade ago, can see a day when Burgess will return to the Rabbitohs.
“His legacy remains untarnished with us and he will always be a great son of the club,” Pappas said.
“I have known him since he was 19 or 20 when he came across (from England). We all love Sam. I am sure he will be back.
“To see Sam leave, particularly at this time of the season, was in the best interests of everyone so we could go in with clear air into our most important game of the season.
“We wish Sam all the best. He will always be a Rabbitoh and will always stay close to us, there is no doubt about that.”
After the most dramatic week of Souths’ season, this masthead can reveal that the Rabbitohs begged Burgess to stay during a two-hour meeting at the club’s headquarters on Thursday morning.
Souths powerbrokers including Pappas, went into that meeting intent on repairing the broken relationship between the club and one of its greatest players, which had become frayed as Burgess grew increasingly concerned with the way the club was being coached and the treatment of star players, in particular Latrell Mitchell.
While fellow assistant John Morris reiterated his commitment to the team, Burgess couldn’t bring himself to stay even though head coach Jason Demetriou insisted they could continue to work together.
At around 9am, Burgess walked out the front door, told a rabid media scrum that a statement would be issued and jumped into the waiting car that was being driven by his partner Lucy Graham, baby capsule having already been fitted in the back seat in preparation for the impending birth of their first child.
For the third time in his life, Burgess had left Souths.
He did it once immediately after etching his name into folklore by playing the 2014 grand final with a fractured cheekbone, departing the Rabbitohs to join England rugby union on a mega-deal.
It was a disaster as Burgess was blamed by sections of the media for their poor performance in the 2015 World Cup. Soon enough, he was back.
He left the club again when his playing career was brought to an end by injury, taking a sabbatical and coaching the Orara Valley Axeman as a favour to Russell Crowe, albeit while still picking up a million-dollar pay cheque from Souths.
He returned last year as an assistant to Demetriou, having spurned advances from Wayne Bennett to join him at the Dolphins. The Rabbitohs needed NRL approval given his chequered off-field history.
Crowe, as always, had championed his man and pushed for him to be signed to work alongside rookie head coach Demetriou. It was a policy that was in hindsight fraught with peril.
Souths have a rich history and Burgess is one of the biggest figures in it. He was a serial winner who partied hard and played harder. When Burgess ran out with a Rabbitohs jersey on his back, you knew what you would get. Everything he had.
He could be carrying painful injury or enduring personal upheaval but the football field was his sanctuary. Asked one day how he was able to perform with his private life in turmoil, Burgess simply replied: “Compartmentalise.”
He was and is a force of nature. That has never changed and Burgess was bound to be a huge presence in the dressing room he had once dominated as a player.
When Souths form started to splutter some weeks ago, cracks started to appear. Former Newcastle star Alex McKinnon wrote a column for Fox Sports more than a week ago that hinted at the troubles that were unfolding at Souths.
McKinnon claimed their form slump could be attributed to two things – the departure of Adam Reynolds and the return of Burgess.
He talked about Burgess’s aura in the dressing room. He insisted that Burgess and Demetriou had to be on the same page or players would find a way to divert from the head coach’s messaging.
Perhaps McKinnon knew more than he was letting on. Maybe he was just prescient. Either way, his column provided a window into Souths and soon enough others began to pay greater attention, putting the spotlight on the dramas that enveloped the club this week.
Burgess could have stayed. He could have continued to earn his pay cheque before heading to Warrington at the end of the season.
When it comes to rugby league, Burgess is a man of principle. It is one of his great contradictions. His life off the field has been a soap opera at times, leaving his personal life open to scrutiny.
Burgess has publicly owned those failings, baring his soul when he appeared on SAS Australia in 2021, admitting to drug use and conceding he was a poor husband at times to his ex-wife Phoebe.
Financially it hasn’t been easy for him either.
Burgess owns no property despite earning more than $10 million from the Rabbitohs and from his stint in rugby union in 2015.
Earlier month his Little Bay apartment where he lived sold for $1,212,500 having been bought off the plan eight years ago for $995,000 in 2015. It took six months to sell.
His Maroubra matrimonial home sold in early 2020 for $5 million having been bought in both his and Phoebe’s name in early 2016 for $3.8 million.
His first property which was bought when he arrived was in Rushcutters Bay which cost $1,075,000 in 2011 and was sold in 2016 for $1.8 million.
Burgess sold his investment apartment on Bondi Beach in 2018 for $3 million having bought it for $2.065 million off the plan apartment in the new Pacific Bondi block in 2012.
He has earned $3 million from Souths as part of his medical retirement.
Sources say he has spent $1 million on legal costs in recent years from his divorce to former wife Phoebe Hook, the fight for custody for his children and driving incidents.
His gambling exploits have been well documented.
In 2020 The Australian newspaper reported he was paying up to $70,000 a day into betting.
Life will be easier in the UK.
His coaching contract with Warrington includes free accommodation and a car.
He will be paid $500,000 a year on top of the $700,000 he gets from the Rabbitohs in the final year on his medical retirement payout.
Yet when it came to rugby league, he demanded the most out of himself and his teammates. He set high standards and he expected them to be met. When he believed some at Souths weren’t meeting those standards, he could only bite his tongue for so long.
Confronted by the reality that things weren’t about to change, he opted to leave. His decision to head for the exit was met with bitter disappointment by Rabbitohs fans. Burgess is a God to them, in large part because of that win in 2014.
“I must say at the end of the meeting we had it was all very gracious,” Pappas said.
“A lot of hugging. It wasn’t storming out of rooms or anything like that. Jason wished Sam great success at Warrington and Sam wished Jason the very best for this season and beyond.
“It was actually all very nice, there was no shouting or anything like that.“
Burgess leaves behind a club that is at the crossroads. Souths still have the chance to play finals football and chase a premiership this season.
Burgess won’t be there but the past week has reinforced that Souths have faith in the man still at the helm.
“We think Jason is a terrific coach and he is going to lead us to a premiership,” Pappas said.
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