THE name Burgess is synonymous with rugby league.
From Sam and George to Luke and Tom, the four brothers hit all the headlines during their playing days with only Tom continuing to play for the South Sydney Rabbitohs.
At one point, all four brothers came to play with the Rabbitohs, with Luke joining the club midway through the 2011 Super League and NRL seasons.
Luke, of course, joined Souths from Leeds Rhinos, with whom he made 81 appearances for between 2007 and 2011.
Now, the 37-year-old has revealed why he made the move and how negotiations went with Leeds chief executive Gary Hetherington about potentially staying at Headingley.
“My contract was due to expire at the end of 2011 and I had made my intentions clear that I was going to see my contract out and then I wanted to go and try the NRL,” Burgess said on James Graham’s The Bye Round podcast.
“Halfway through the 2011 season, I had been playing good rugby and the club wanted to re-sign me but I had already made my decision that I wanted to play out the year and go to Australia.
“Then I thought ‘well maybe I could do a couple more years in England’ so I wanted to see what offer Leeds would put forward.
“Gary (Hetherington) put an offer forward that was pretty much exactly the same as what I was on and I thought ‘thanks for the offer, but I’m going to go as planned.’
“After that, I stopped getting put in the team and I was out of favour. That’s why I ended up leaving midway through the 2011 season because I wasn’t playing and Souths at the time had a lot of injured forwards.”
Though Burgess wasn’t keen on Hetherington’s offer, he still praised the Leeds chief executive.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for Gary; he looked after me a lot as well during my time in Leeds. I think they are a great club and a good business and that’s all to do with Gary and his structure.
“He would allocate slices of a ‘pie’ but unfortunately there is not much of an allocation given to English players unless you play for your country which, at the time, I hadn’t.
“I was on £50,000 at the time which was a decent contract for a 20-year-old. Gary has drawn the pie for me in meetings.
“I learned so much about negotiations in those meetings. I went in by myself because my manager and Gary couldn’t be in the same room together.
“But my upgrade to stay was £55,000 the next year and then £60,000 the year after that.”
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