Sam Burgess now long odds-on for a return to rugby league - the code he loves

On the eve of the final of a tournament that was supposed to mark his transition into a rugby union player, the odds on Sam Burgess making a swift return to rugby league have been slashed.

Bath have given the former Bradford and South Sydney forward the week off, fuelling the fires that were already burning when Burgess sat with the England rugby league coach, Steve McNamara, at last Saturday’s Test against France rather than watching his union team-mates play Wasps down the road in Coventry.

Sure, he was there to see his brother Tom play, but it was a demonstration of the way the 26-year-old is emotionally bound to the 13-man game in a way he never could be to union, although Bath coach Mike Ford – who insiders at the club say has been stressed out this week – insisted that too much was being read into Burgess’s attendance at Leigh.

“He’s gone away to get refreshed and will be back in training on Monday,” said Ford, an ex-league man himself and one of Burgess’s advocates in the England camp, albeit as a back-row forward rather than at centre, where national head coach Stuart Lancaster and his assistants insisted he was best suited. “There are no dramas here. Everyone has put two and two together.”

If a lot of people were making that sum, if not four, then a solid three-and-a-half, the betting was all one way when Ladbrokes cut the odds on Burgess playing league again in 2016 to a miserly 1-6. They expect that to be with South Sydney, the club he served with such distinction until the 2014 NRL Grand Final.

The club is co-owned by Hollywood star Russell Crowe, who made it a personal project to sign Burgess after seeing him play for the Bradford Bulls. He tried equally hard to persuade him against leaving, but the player had his eyes firmly fixed on the rugby union World Cup.

Burgess’s inclusion in England’s World Cup squad was contentious and when he played, with limited impact, it polarised the game between those who favoured sticking with him and others who were keen to scrap the experiment.

Ford had promised to give him time to learn the game at flanker, where he has proved effective in club colours, but the attraction of Sydney and the game he grew up playing looks too strong.

Apart from the all-time hero status he enjoys, he has three brothers playing league in Sydney, two of them with the Rabbitohs, as well as his mother, his girlfriend and her family either living in the city or wishing to return.

Money is no object for Crowe and fellow owner Jamie Packer. Significantly, the NRL – Australian rugby league’s governing body – has confirmed that any fee the Rabbitohs pay Bath will not count against their salary cap, removing the biggest stumbling block to a deal.

Burgess is believed to be in Spain, trying to keep his head down while he mulls over his next move. What is likely to be at the front of his mind is the fact that he simply enjoys playing league.

He knows that he will be greeted back to the code as a returning messiah. He will be expected to lead Souths to another Grand Final victory and England to pre-eminence at international level.

Ladbrokes are offering 7-1 against him playing Super League in England again and 33-1 against him captaining the national team next season. There are odds of 100-1 against him somehow being drafted into the side to play the Kiwis next week.

But then rugby of both codes has tended to have big expectations of Sam Burgess.