Off The Ball Sam’s bravery not the best

I CAN’T believe I’m about to write this, but here goes.

As a precursor, I should point out political correctness has never been my strong suit

I was brought up in a time when people were pretty much responsible for their own destiny.

They just dealt with what was in front of them each day without much fuss, and got on with life.

Most of us survived, free from overzealous rules and regulations and nanny state mentalities.

But on saying all that, how on earth was Sam Burgess allowed to continue playing in Sunday night’s grand final after suffering a serious facial injury in the first minute of the game?

We all give the bloke full marks for courage and toughness, but in 2014 it goes against all the namby-pamby workplace health and safety rules dictating our every move in the world.

I know John Sattler played on in a grand final nursing a broken jaw.

But that was 1971, years before hanging was even abolished in Australia.

Other footballers, including Toowoomba’s own late great Des McGovern, battled through the pain barrier carrying broken bones on the field. But this was a bloke’s melon. Doctors have been reported as saying he risked blindness had things gone wrong a second time during the match.

Burgess had five hours of surgery on Wednesday, which included the addition of four metal plates to help repair the damage.

Burgess was never going to volunteer to come off.

There was a grand final win and possible legend status at stake if he could help pull it off.

But surely someone had to say: “Sam you need to come off and have this assessed. If the doc gives the all-clear to return to the field, go for your life.”

Someone dropped the duty-of-care ball here, but hey, there was a game of footy and a premiership to be won. That overrides absolutely everything, doesn’t it?

I think Souths would have handled Canterbury just as impressively even without Sam Burgess.

He was great and the Rabbitohs awesome.

They developed this season into I believe the most dominant NRL team I’ve seen in recent years, and would have continued getting only better had the season gone on.

Either Souths were that good or the rest were that bad.

I had no problem with Sam Burgess taking out the Clive Churchill Medal, but for me the player of the match was his brother George.

He is big, strong, tough, mobile, unrelenting, intimidating and everything else you would hope to find in a perfect league forward.

Someone once asked famous Great Britain halfback and later coach Alex Murphy what would be his “perfect” forward pack.

“A ball player, four running forwards and one madman,” Murphy replied.

Perhaps in George Burgess, Murphy might have found his ideal pack almost rolled into one.