‘We’ll be brothers forever but business is business’: Sam Burgess on family, infamy and fears for Luke Littler

Donald McRae

Feb. 11, 2025, 8 a.m.

The Warrington head coach reflects on high expectations, learning from pain and a Super League opener against Huddersfield and his younger brother Thomas

“A lot of pain or adversity can be a great foundation for future success,” Sam Burgess says as we track back through the dark times, as well as the glory years, which have shaped him. Burgess, the once imperious rugby league player from Yorkshire who earned searing fame and then infamy in Australia, is about to start his second campaign as the head coach of Warrington Wolves.

Having guided Warrington to third place in Super League and to the Challenge Cup final last season, Burgess aims to end the club’s 70-year wait for another championship. It is a sign of the calm hope he feels now that the 36-year-old can reflect on the tumult and strife he has endured – starting with the death of his father from motor neurone disease when Burgess was a teenager to playing with a shattered cheekbone and fractured eye socket while inspiring the South Sydney Rabbitohs to their first NRL title in 43 years in 2014.