Former England centre Sam Burgess has taken a strange swipe at Jamie Roberts in an appearance on a rugby league podcast, belittling him as "just like a normal NRL player" who "wasn't interested in contact".
Burgess, who switched codes prior to the 2015 World Cup, failed to make the same mark in union as he did in league - with England exiting their home World Cup in the pool stages. The 33-year-old, who was forced to retire from rugby league through injury and is now looking for coaching jobs in Australia, has never exactly hidden his bitterness over the short-lived move to union.
And it would appear that resentment extends to Welsh centre Roberts, who started opposite Burgess in midfield during Wales' famous 28-25 victory at Twickenham. Speaking on former England rugby league international James Graham's The Bye Round podcast, Burgess felt compelled to bring up the 94-cap Wales midfielder when listing his gripes with the 15-a-side game.
“We play Wales the next week and he starts me at inside centre," he said, speaking about his World Cup experiences. "They have Jamie Roberts who’s [supposedly] some big guy, but he’s just like a normal NRL player.
"He’s supposed to be this big fierce runner, but he wasn’t interested in contact. I think I hit him a couple of times in the game, I don’t remember him so much.
“We played the game I didn’t do a great deal. It was just a normal game of footie. We were leading by 10 and they took me off with 20 minutes to go.
“They bring George Ford on and Jamie Roberts starts running over him and we lose by three. And that was it. So much goes into that. At the end of the day my face didn’t fit.
“Of course I made a few errors in the game but we were leading by 10. I’m sure there were players who played the game their whole lives and made errors in the game.
“It’s one of those things, the press had an agenda or other people had huge agendas."
Burgess' issue with Roberts could stem from the two-time Lions tourists' autobiography, which touched on the frenzy around that 2015 game - including Burgess' infamous response of 'who?' when asked a question about Welsh centre Scott Williams.
There was also a bizarre series of text message years later.
"We had Burgess’s number," wrote Roberts about the game. "He didn’t have a clue. Scotty would have loved that too, after Burgess had insulted him during the week, saying, when asked about Scott in a press conference, "who’s that?"
"Earlier in the half, Scott had piled into Burgess, smashing him to the deck and dislodging the ball. As they’d returned to their feet, Scotty had looked him in the eye and said, "you know who I am now".
"Three years later, my phone buzzed with an Australian number. Not recognising it, I didn’t answer, letting it go straight to voicemail. There followed a long, rambling sequence of text messages from someone referring to themselves as "the greatest" and imploring me to pick up.
"It took me a while to figure out it was Sam Burgess. He may have been under the influence, going on to describe himself as "the guy who shut me down" before England had apparently "bottled it" and replaced him with George Ford.
"When the English press combed through the wreckage of their failed campaign, they’d been desperate to find a scapegoat, and Burgess – the outsider from rugby league – had proved a convenient one.
"The public opprobrium had clearly left its mark, and all those years later it obviously still hurt."
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