I dont know, I dont know what is in his contract. How can you say it seems certain a clause exists, I mean I suggested it moths ago but I wasn't certain about it by any means. How is my thinking short term? I want to keep the best & most promising player on our books for the next 2 years, not sell him now, get a little bit of money and hope we find a suitable replacement, the short term thinkers are those perhaps like yourself, that are looking to make a quick buck out of our best?

He can leave free as a bird on good terms when his deal comes to an end, we haven't treated him like dirt, he hasn't treated us like dirt, everybody is happy that everybody has kept to their terms of the contract.

while we may be able to force him to stay till end of his contract, we cant force him to perform on the pitch. It serves no purpose to retain a player who wants away.

think if he wants to go we should let him as no point keeping a player who wants to go and in long run will only unsettle dressing room if he was forced to stay and wed end up with the paul newlove situation all over again and would stop any chances of burgess returning to bulls after stint in oz

This is what will happen if Burgess is sold.

The club sells Burgess for an undisclosed fee, which means they have got next to nothing for him. Bulls lose their best man, nothing is spent on strengthening the squad, no replacement of adequate quality is signed, we see another miserable season.

Those that think we are going to get a bit of cash for Burgess and see it used for transfer fees for top players are going to be very very dissapointed and you'll be wishing that Burgess will have been held to his contract so we'd have had the advantage of a top quality player playing for us for a further two seasons.

All it will do is further pin down the fact that we have become a selling club.

But Macca is the greatest thing since sliced bread, surley he wouldn't be unsettled at staying here with the greatest coach he's ever had, and at the only club he's wanted to play for.

Anyhow, I think selling him is a great idea, so lets sell our best guy in the hope that he MIGHT one day come back to us, bloody brilliant idea that is. IF Sam decides to come back to England after his stint down under, he's more than likley going to be at the stage where he is looking for the big pay day. You can forget about us offering him a big pay day, we don't pay big.

Ah . . . . you're slipping back into how you first started posting on here . . . . . which, IMHO, is a bit of a shame.

Which is?

There is enough rumour out there from several sources at home & in Aus that this NRL get out clause at the end of next season is in the contract.

So we are going to have 2 options. Allow him to go this off season if our valuation is met. Keep him for one season more and allow him to go with our thanks and our good wishes with no compensation to the NRL.

He has always given his all for the club and there is no reason to suspect he will "down tools" if we say that an offer hasn't come in and he is playing with us next season.

I think season ticket sales will have a big effect on which option the club goes with.

The cost cutting which has gone on recently was enough to stabilise the finances - [ias long as[/i various attendance figures & season ticket sales for next year are met.

If this (up until now) very poor season pushes ticket sales below projection then I think the club will have to sell Burgess early.

If this little flurry of wins +/- a playoff spot sells a few hundred more tickets then I think we will be able to keep him next season. A Bulls team with Burgess in it next season is much preferable to one without

As I've said, a shame.

The thought of Burgess leaving depresses the heck out of me.

It's not helped by the complete lack of positive spin from the club, instead we as usual get to hear rumours from Oz without any comment from our club. It may well be there is no comment to make, but a clarification would be useful to say the least.

After all Sam is the new "Robbie Paul" of the club, the young marketable figurehead that typifies the club's plan to bring through its juniors and build a team from the bottom "the right way" as McNamara mentioned at the fans forum.

Every day I look for some more positive news about next season or any new signings. I hope we get some more positive news soon or season ticket sales won't be very good. The club need to create a positive spin now more than ever. We've had our worst season since 91/92 and we need reasons to be cheerful. The one main story doing the rounds is that our best young player is off and that's it.

How will he leave on good terms if we keep him for 2 years after he wanted to leave ?

How would people feel if losing Burgess a year early meant we had the funds to sign a young, promising, British Scrum half?

I firmly believe Burgess will go in 2010 anyway if we turn down a potential deal with the SS. Personally I'd cut a deal with Crowe and throw a deal together for someone like Myler. I'm a Bulls supporter, not a Burgess supporter and if he want's a new challenge we should grant him his wish and thank him for his efforts. He may or may not return but no player is bigger than the club. I'll be gutted to see him go, but if we can ease some of the blow then we should definitely consider letting him go now.

If we can use this to genuinely strengthen the team then fair enough.

Unfortunately I think Myler to Warrington is a done deal. As for other promising young British scrum halves who else is there? Certainly nobody who could fill Burgess's shoes as a focal point for the fans to support and for the club to use in their marketing.

I just hope that the silence from the club on the transfer front is because they are working on some deals that will see us strengthen the side and not just leave a large Burgess sized whole in the squad.

Myler may or may not be a done deal.. certainly quite a few rumours flying around. The news coming out of the Salford camp seemed to be that no satisfactory deal had been reached with Warrington as yet. I agree that simply selling Burgess would be a PR disaster for the club. We perhaps have a figure from SS that they're prepared to pay and we're now trying to recruit some players already under contract.

For now I guess we will have to trust the club are getting the best deal possible, but given some recent recruitment I can fully understand why people are a little worried.

My agent will be in touch.

In that case it's worth getting involved if we have some cash.



Pretty much sums up my feelings. I'm hoping the club are working on getting the best deal they can so that we aren't going into next season even weaker than this.

Matty Smith off to Salford so it looks like it's sealed.

Agreed

But in fairness, I think you are probably allowed a few slips from time to time, as long as you continue to post reasoned arguments and opinions responsibly the rest of the time?

He does talk rubbish a lot of the time tho

We've talked about this elsewhere, and I know you feel strongly about it. And without a doubt you can see some of those areas of concern are shared by many (myself included). As I think has been said before, I don't see anyone saying we should through choice sell Sam? I'm sure the club through choice would not (and if they were in a position where they had no choice, then we ARE in trouble). And yes, I can't for one minute see us getting much cash if we released him early to go to Oz.

The thing is though, IF (as has been widely trailed in the media but never actually confirmed or denied) his new contract allowed him release if to Oz at end 2010, then since both he and the club willingly entered into that agreement you can't then take issue with Sam for wishing to exercise that release clause? Or with the club for recognising that the clause that they agreed to is there? Assuming of course it IS there, and since the club has not denied it I am assuming it is.

Then we get to the question of whether Sam - or his manager - or various antipodeans - have asked about the possibility of premature release. That is how it is playing out in the media, although I can't recall seeing Sam or even Caisley actually saying a premature release has been asked for by Sam? We HAVE seen what seems pretty unequivocal evidence that folk in Oz have enquired about this, and the only comments attributed to Hood that I have seen - in the Oz media - were that he would be going nowhere unless someone started talking numbers so big that no club could ignore them. Again, on the assumption that he would be free to go to Oz end next year anyway.

Sam's very recent comments read to me very much like he WOULD like to go ASAP, and he sort of implied (I suggest) that it was in the hands of the club to decide. So I feel sure there is a lot going on behind the scenes here. I would hope and expect that the club would make sure that there was indeed an enforceable commitment from Sam to return to us (provided the financial terms are OK) should he return within a reasonable period - should they agree to early release. Caisley should be the bloody expert on that by now...

And (as you know I have said before) why would the club consider early release if not primarily for the money? I suggest that if you can only keep a player for another season, and if he maybe can already sign now a contract for an Oz club to join them in 12 months so his performances next season will not affect his move to Oz anyway, and if (following the antics of his manager and high-profile Oz figures) he is now unsettled, then you are stuck with two choices. Its all very well saying in that case play him in the reserves to teach him a lesson but don't give in to him, but how would having a big chunk of salary cap tied up in a disgruntled high-profiler not helping the first team solve anything?

Its all still hypothetical because we continue to lack hard facts. We really could do without losing Sam. But if he has been persuaded he'd be better off personally seeking early release - IF - then I suggest the club has little option but to try and make the best of it. And you'd hope that Sam would remain sufficiently professional and honest that, should the club not be able to strike a deal reasonable in the circumstances and he can see that the club has indeed tried its best to accommodate his wishes, then he would in turn give HIS best next season.

As I say again though...we still know nowt!

Quote ="tigertot"Matty Smith off to Salford so it looks like it's sealed.'" www.superleague.co.uk/article.php?id=15235 Indeed

Quote ="tigertot"Matty Smith off to Salford so it looks like it's sealed.'" www.superleague.co.uk/article.php?id=15235 Indeed

Doesn't sound like a player on his way to me. But other articles do .

Souths were going to give Bradford Craig Wing as part of a player trade but he didn't want to go to England.

Wish he did though. Went to Japan Rugby instead.

not sure what to make of it but did anyone else notice Breaver grab Sam's arm and force him to wave "goodbye" to the stand after todays game ?

sorry if this has been mentioned elsewhere