With Sam back, I believe we can win World Cup
No one is surprised that our talisman recovered from injury so quickly. Now we can kick on
Having Sam Burgess back in the team for tomorrow’s quarter-final against Papua New Guinea is obviously a huge boost for the team, but none of the lads were surprised by the speed of his recovery.
After suffering a medial knee ligament injury in the World Cup’s opening game, against Australia, he predicted that he would be back for the quarter-finals. And when Sam says he is going to do something, you can be sure he will do it. That is just the type of character he is.
His return adds to the number of leaders we have in the team. He leads from the front, motivates the squad and is constantly communicating with the rest of the players.
On the pitch, it is his sheer toughness that makes him stand out: the way he carries the ball, the way he tackles. He gives his all and he does it on a consistent basis, which is why he is a world-class player.
Sam has been travelling around Australia with us but until the past few days his injury had stopped him from joining in with our group training sessions, which is always frustrating for any player.
Instead, he has been on his own with the physios on the side of the pitch, or doing personalised stuff in the gym.
It has helped that we are all spending a lot of time with each other off the pitch, away from training and matches, and Sam has remained part of everything.
It is particularly important to have him back for tomorrow’s quarter-final, because there are no second chances now.
We need to be on our game, and we still need to improve after patchy second-half performances against Lebanon in our second match and in last week’s 36-6 victory over France.
We were happy with our first-half showing last week, but when we start well and build a healthy lead, we tend to try a few different things because we have
those points on the board. For us it is now about concentrating, doing our job and doing it as a team. The success will come when we focus on doing that more.
There are quick turnarounds between matches now we are coming into the latter stages of the competition.
We are staying in the same Melbourne hotel we were in before the opening game, but when we first arrived we had 10 or 12 days before the tournament to get used to the climate and the area, so there were plenty of opportunities to get out and do things.
Now, when we are playing the games, there is much less scope for that and the weeks feel like they are passing much quicker. We are playing, then recovering, then training, then recovering and then playing again. It is a running cycle.
Moving into the knockout stages, we are obviously confident in ourselves and our ability, but now we also have the fear of failure.
That is a good thing, though, and the mood in the camp is great because we can feel how big an opportunity we have to win this tournament.
Kallum Watkins is speaking on behalf of Kingstone Press, the official cider of Rugby League.