Sam Burgess’s immense talent will best serve England in the centres

The Sam Burgess education continues apace. On Friday night in Montpellier the 25-year-old is due to get his first taste of European rugby exactly a week after playing his first 17 minutes of competitive union. No doubt about it, Burgess is being fast-tracked and he will have to be if England are to squeeze him into a red rose jersey next month, as Stuart Lancaster apparently intends.

Only days after the convert celebrated his first two touches for Bath, England’s head coach was talking about selecting Burgess in the Saxon side to play the Wolfhounds, the Irish second XV, in Cork. Then who knows?

Before Lancaster picks his squad for the Six Nations, which kicks off with another Friday night appearance, in Cardiff on 6 February, Burgess has just eight games to prove he is worth a place, not perhaps in the starting XV against Wales, but possibly against Italy the following week.

If that happens then we really can think that the man currently rated the best (former) rugby league player in the world might be on track for yet another Friday night game – the World Cup opener against Fiji in under 10 months.

That would be going some, even if obstacles were not being put in Burgess’ path.

I don’t want to be a killjoy, but when, just minutes after last Friday’s game, I heard that Burgess would be reprising that cameo performance in the south of France, but thereafter his time would be split between the backs and the back row of the pack, I gave an involuntary shudder.

You see, there is a rule of thumb for those crossing the codes, which is: stay as far from the scrum as possible if you want to make a success of your new sport. And that’s what it is; a new set of rules and protocols to learn even to make the relatively straightforward transition from ball-carrier in league to playing in the backs at union.

I’m not going to list all those who failed to make the leap, just give one example to show the troubles a guy, once rated best in the Great British community, faced when he tried translating his skills from Wigan and Great Britain to Saracens and England.

I don’t think I’m breaking any confidences when I say that Andy Farrell, a success in league at stand-off, five-eighth, prop, second-row, loose forward and lock confided to a mutual friend, Denis Betts, another Wigan Warrior and now coach at Widnes, that he found playing in the centre in union difficult enough, but when he tried the back row he was totally lost.

It’s no surprise. As someone who spent the best part of a dozen years playing professionally in the back row with Saracens, Wasps, Newcastle and Bristol I would have been delighted to go up against even someone as good as Burgess after he’d played for a season, let alone a handful of games. As Farrell confessed; what took him a couple of seconds to work out was instinctive to those around him.

As an example to show how life is completely different for someone trying to move out of the back line, where they basically run up and down the field – north to south - to the forwards where they will be going side to side or east to west, let’s consider the attacking lineout.

Until fairly recently the lineout was divided into two groups – the jumping trio, and the hooker and the rest. Now it’s divided into groups of two, three and three and each of those three groups has different jobs at the first, second and third breakdowns after the lineout is completed.

At the first, the first to the breakdown will be seven and eight; at the second it will be the two non-jumping forwards and the hooker; finally at the third it’ll be the jumper and the two lifters. Simple so far? Well, that is the formula if the throw is to the back of the line out, and it further changes as the game moves on beyond the three areas nominated by the attacking side for where they want the breakdowns to be. And, of course, it changes again for defensive lineouts.

Simply, anyone playing in the back row has to understand those protocols and how they change on the hoof, something which is difficult enough for guys who have been around the block a few times. But it’s when the game becomes more fluid, the ball manipulating defence, that things get complicated and when instinct has to take over.

As group after group deal with the series of breakdowns, so the others go “round the corner” keeping the move going before a good back-row senses it’s time to reap the reward for all the hard work. They have to present themselves as an attacking option. Done instinctively – watch Kieran Read or Richie McCaw – and there is a chance; delay and you’re buried because the opposition is mirroring your actions and will be only a sniff away.

“Jackling” – getting over the ball at the breakdown and either pilfering it or winning a penalty – is something that can be taught as, apparently, the exceptional Francois Louw is doing with Burgess in training with Bath. Getting up to speed with the rest of the back-row duties – and we haven’t talked about the synergy, blend and balance between openside, blindside and No8 or their duties at scrum time – is another matter, and one which Farrell, now one of Lancaster’s assistants, might want to talk about, if Burgess cares to call.