Sam Burgess reveals Hollywood star Russell Crowe’s incredible gesture after his father’s death from motor neurone disease as NRL legend explains why he does NOT miss Sydney

There is, Sam Burgess explains, at least one advantage to swapping a summer in Sydney for a winter in Warrington.

“Just being able to go for a meal and walk around the shops without being hassled,” says the new head coach of Warrington Wolves, who returned to England with his fiancée Lucy and newborn daughter Robbie in October. “Not feeling like you’re being watched all the time.”

For Burgess, privacy was of great importance in Australia. In a country where rugby league stars are as famous as footballers here, the captain of NRL giants South Sydney Rabbitohs was big news: his exploits on the field made the back pages, his troubles off it made the front pages.

“There is an extremely high-pressure environment there,” the 35-year-old tells Mail Sport from a hospitality box in his new home, the Halliwell Jones Stadium. ‘Maybe it will be that way here, but so far I’ve thoroughly enjoyed everything about my return – and I think Lucy has probably enjoyed it even more than I have.

‘I went back to see where it all started. I went back to my old street and saw the house where we grew up. I took Lucy to where I used to play: Dewsbury Moor and Hunslet Parkside.

‘We are really settled and we love the people here too. The rugby league community is a very welcoming community.”

Certainly more welcoming than the rugby community when Burgess last returned to England a decade ago, where he was harassed by a man with his dog for 80 minutes while playing for Bath Reserves in Exeter.

Slammin’ Sam eventually helped Bath – who he joined from South Sydney for £500,000 – reach the Premier League final in his only season at the club. But his controversial cross-code switch will be remembered for his involvement in England’s disastrous 2015 home World Cup campaign.

Despite finishing the domestic season as a flanker, Burgess was selected in Stuart Lancaster’s side as a center over the more established Luther Burrell. When the hosts failed to progress from their group after losing to Australia and Wales, some pundits partly blamed the new convert from rugby league, who promptly returned to the 13-a-side competition.

Does he think he has been made a scapegoat for England’s doomed campaign? “That’s how it feels sometimes,” Burgess admits. “They love a bad guy and it worked for me to be that guy.

‘Everyone gets upset and thinks I went too fast. But you ask every player in camp to be honest, I worked my butt off and fought my way onto that team.”

Burgess points out that in his five England appearances, his team have only been behind once when he was on the pitch – when he came on as a substitute in the 65th minute in the 33-13 defeat to Australia. Against Wales, England were leading 25-18 when Burgess was substituted in the 70th minute and they went on to lose 28-25.

“The match against Wales is the most crucial match that everyone talks about,” he says. ‘I don’t know how they can make me a scapegoat, but they have found a way.

“We had some incredible coaches. Stuart Lancaster, Andy Farrell, Mike Catt, Graham Rowntree. Look at what they’ve done in their careers. The results on the field were not what we were looking for. But the players have to look at part of their application for that.

‘I ended up having a bit of a falling out with people in Bath, which is essentially why I left. It had nothing to do with England. You have a very short career and I wanted to make the most of it and do it in a place where there was less playing behind the scenes and more on the field.’

After cutting ties with Bath just 12 months into his three-year deal, Burgess returned to South Sydney, which is co-owned by his good friend Russell Crowe.

When the Yorkshireman first signed for the NRL in 2009 at the age of 20, it was the Gladiator actor who personally called him and asked him to sign after seeing him in action for Bradford Bulls. Crowe then invited Burgess and his mother Julie to the Robin Hood film set, where they chatted for three hours in his trailer.

Last year the Hollywood A-lister even encouraged Burgess to leave his role as assistant coach at South Sydney and take up his first top job at Warrington, which is owned by one of Crowe’s associates, concert promoter Simon Moran.

“We talk almost every day,” Burgess says of Crowe. ‘We’re just good friends. He is wonderful, very loyal and a good role model. He’s coming to a game. I think he’s doing something in his world here and I think the dates might match, which will be pretty cool.”

Burgess will forever be moved by a gesture Crowe made shortly after joining the Rabbitohs, when he presented him with a season ticket for his father Mark, who died in 2007 from motor neurone disease.

“His seat is next to Russell’s in the stadium,” says Burgess. ‘Every year Russell sends me his membership card. He has been a member of the club since 2010 and is now a gold member.’

Burgess – whose brothers Luke, Tom and George also all played for South Sydney – was just 18 when his father died. He acted as his sole caregiver at home and juggled those responsibilities with attempting to break into the Bradford first team.

“If you look back, it was a pretty tough time,” he recalls. “But while you’re in the middle of it, you just do what you need to do and you just keep going.

“My dad saw me play professionally for Bradford and he was my biggest fan. I wanted him to see me play for England or Great Britain, but unfortunately he passed away before I played.

‘It was a really pivotal time in my life. It shapes you and gives you a great perspective. What’s the saying? Adversity introduces a man to himself.”

Burgess has suffered further setbacks of late. After a chronic shoulder injury forced him to retire in 2019 at the age of 30, he admits he felt “completely lost” as his life spiraled. He divorced his wife Phoebe, with whom he has two children, and was caught driving with traces of cocaine in his system, leading to a month in rehab, which he says “changed his life.”

Another life-changing experience occurred when Burgess appeared on the TV reality show SAS Australia and made a splash as the only celebrity to pass the grueling course. “What I took away from it is that your body is capable of more than your mind tells you,” he says.

On the program Burgess struck up a friendship with SAS lead instructor Ant Middleton. He used that connection to organize a two-day boot camp for his Wolves team at Betteshanger Country Park in Deal, Kent, in December, forcing players to give up their phones, sleep in tents and run 45 miles in 30 hours.

“Ant is a good friend of mine, but also a very intelligent man and knows how to bring people together,” says Burgess. “It was a really tough two days, but I thought it would probably bring us together as a team a little bit.

“I wanted to revisit it and find out a little more about my players. It was a very fun exercise. It may not have felt like it at the time, but I think we got a lot out of it as a group.”

Time will tell if that boot camp will bring Warrington to life this season. Wire, who start their season with Catalans on Saturday, finished sixth in the Super League last year and were knocked out by St Helens in the first round of the play-offs.

They are the only club to have spent every season in the English top flight, but they have not won the title since 1955. However, Burgess has a history of turning around underachievers, having led South Sydney to NRL glory as captain in 2014, ending a 43-year drought.

“The storyline is quite similar and hopefully that experience will help me shape things here,” said the Super League’s youngest boss, who hosted teenage darts sensation and Warrington fan Luke Littler at training last month.

‘At the end of the day, everyone is chasing the prizes, that’s what we’re here for. But that’s in the distance. It is more important to improve today.

‘I’m not going to make any bold statements. It won’t help the team, and it won’t help me either. But the opportunity is fantastic. I’m just looking forward to getting started now.”