‘I never got over being hooked by Jones. It left me in a dark pit’
Taken off after just 28 minutes against Australia six years ago, Luther Burrell says the end of his England career scarred him
The 2016 whitewash of Australia remains a seminal moment in Eddie Jones’s tenure as England head coach. But, while Danny Care and the Vunipola brothers, Mako and Billy, have been recalled for another crack at them this summer, two more veterans of that tour find themselves in decidedly different positions.
Luther Burrell admits that he has not been the same since his humiliation Down Under six years ago, when George Ford replaced him 28 minutes into the first Test.
Burrell has spent his morning on the local athletics track before meeting Mike Brown for an upper-body strength session, with both men having been let go by Newcastle Falcons and joining a swathe of players exiting the Premiership.
Another deal, most likely with an overseas team, is the hope for Burrell while Brown, England’s mostcapped full-back, is fiercely determined to continue his career.
Understandably, Burrell describes the situation brought on by tightening budgets as “brutal”. Joel Hodgson and Marco Fuser, an established fly-half and an Italy international respectively, are two others to be leaving Newcastle.
Burrell, 32, who scored four tries over 15 caps between 2014 and 2016, is also wary of being undercut. He is proud of his CV, which features a Premiership and European Challenge Cup double in 2014 with Northampton Saints.
He has various pursuits to fall back on, not least a coaching website – synergywithlutherburrell. com, so does not feel ‘‘desperate”.
“I have other things going on in my life that excite me. I’m not going to be defined as ‘Luther Burrell, rugby player’. I’ve got a wealth of experience and I can still do a very good job for a team, wherever that may be,” he says.
“But we constantly put our bodies on the line in this job and it is savage. You can see how brutal it can be with career-ending injuries, the long-lasting effect of concussions and depression. I don’t want to be
underpaid to go out on the weekend and get my bloomin’ head kicked in. You have younger players paid next to nothing. I’ve been there and I don’t need to go back.”
The sense of self-worth is heartening when one reflects on the past. Back in 2016, with Australia leading England 10-6 in Brisbane, significant psychological trauma was triggered. “Can I be honest?” he asks. “That had a long-lasting effect on me like people will never, ever understand.”
Just over nine months prior to that, Burrell had missed out on selection for the 2015 World Cup despite a strong Six Nations that year. Sam Burgess was included. A “ridiculous sideshow” followed.
“Still, to this day, people mention it,” Burrell says. “Jim Mallinder and the guys at Northampton were fantastic. But not one single person from the RFU [Rugby Football Union] or England reached out to me to see how I was. I dropped off the face of the Earth because I was in a really, really bad place.
“I managed to get myself back into decent form and back into the England set-up and had a good game against Wales before the tour of Australia. Bang, Eddie [Jones] asks me to jump on the plane. The whole media thing is, ‘Can you believe, post-world Cup, he’s back?’ Still, no one’s asking if I’m OK.”
Jones started Burrell with Owen Farrell at fly-half but England began badly. Bernard Foley sliced through for what would have been Australia’s third try before officials spotted an obstruction that caused it to be disallowed. That was the cue for Burrell to be hooked.
“I can remember Jonathan Joseph asking, ‘Are you going off?’ Apparently I was. As I sat on the bench, I could have cried. I was heartbroken. My heart was in my stomach because I knew how it was going to be portrayed. I had no real idea why at that point. And it set me off again, mentally. It was like ‘Wow, the whole of rugby has seen this’. I couldn’t remember whether I’d missed a tackle or not.”
History is written by the victors and collateral damage can be overlooked. England won 39-28, setting the tone for a fine series triumph, and Jones gave a speech in the Suncorp Stadium changing rooms that inadvertently worsened matters.
“He said, ‘Make sure you get around Luther’,” says Burrell, who was told that his prompt removal was due to a poor defensive read. “I was like, ‘That’s even worse!’ It drew more attention to me. I’m sure he was trying to make sure I was OK, but I wasn’t OK.”
When Ben Te’o emerged as a hard-running deputy for Manu Tuilagi the next autumn, Burrell’s days as an international were over.
“It felt like, ‘Your face doesn’t fit, all the best’. I had to suck that up
‘With rugby in a mess, are clubs going to go above and beyond with these players getting released?’
and, again, pull myself out of a dark pit. It was hell and I don’t think I’ve been the same player since,” he says.
Burrell hired a life coach, Tim Martin, at the end of 2015 and still speaks to him most days. Having joined Newcastle following a short stint in rugby league with Warrington Wolves, Burrell possesses a broad perspective.
Earlier this month, Kyle Sinckler posted a tweet claiming that 100 Premiership players would be without a club for the 2022-23 campaign. As one of those, Burrell paused for thought.
“With rugby in the position it’s in, which is a mess, let’s be honest, are clubs going to go above and beyond with these players getting released?” he asks. “I don’t think all of them are, because you’re all on a conveyor belt and when your time’s done it’s, ‘Bang, see you later. Next one in’. That’s how it is.”
Whether or not another club makes him an offer, Burrell is content with his lot, ready for the “real world” and eager to pass on what professional sport has taught him – 2016 and all. In such a tricky time, the sport would do well to listen.