While the likes of Sam Burgess, Adrian Morley, and James Graham have etched themselves into the folklore of their respective clubs through their toughness and consistently high level of performances, the men listed below are on the other end of that scale with their dream move to the NRL having crumbled.
5. Joe Burgess
After an extremely impressive return of 52 tries from 55 games for the Wigan Warriors between 2013-2015, it was announced that Joe Burgess would be headed to the NRL after signing a three-year deal with the Sydney Roosters starting in season 2015.
After a two-try effort on debut in the Roosters embarrassing 42-10 loss against the Rabbitohs in round 1, it was all downhill from there for the Wigan academy graduate.
He would go on to feature for the Roosters on a measly three more occasions in the 2015 season, registering zero tries in that time. While his pace was evident from the get-go, his finishing ability, ball handling skills, and physicality left a lot to be desired, and it was clear that he was not going to cut it at the Roosters.
The remainder of his days as a Rooster was spent predominantly with their NSW Cup feeder side the Wyong Roos, and in mid-2016 it was announced that the Roosters had loaned out Burgess to their arch-rivals the Rabbitohs for the remainder of the season, an extremely uncommon piece of business in the NRL.
Burgess would go on to score a respectable 5 tries in 9 appearances during his short stay at South Sydney, and would later return to Wigan at the conclusion of the 2016 season on a three-year deal.
Joe Burgess has got to be the biggest dud in recent NRL history, souffffths poached him away from the Roosters mid season, thank God from and he continued to perform his dudery over in the green and smelly dead rabbit bloodied red.
It was appropriate at the time where he could play with the other four hopeless poms those four Burgess brothers Sam 🤡, George🤡 Tom 🤡and the other one was so bad I can’t even remember his name. 5 DUD Poms playing at souffffths.🤣😆😂😁😂😆🤣