Rabbitohs coach Michael Maguire says the club has moved on from the departure of Sam Burgess after the West Yorkshire native helped South Sydney end a 43-yearpremiership drought with a man-of-the-match effort in October’s NRL Grand Final.
Burgess is a good chance of claiming the this week’s Golden Boot award for the world player of the year, however Maguire believes the reigning premiers have enough in stock to cover for the departing centre.
“We all know what Sam meant to the club and obviously he’s left a great legacy behind,” Maguire said on Wednesday.
“But for us now, that chapter has finished up and I’ve got a Timmy Grant and Glenn Stewart coming in and I’ve got a lot of young kids that are going into the squad.
“I think the experience of a lot of our young guys who came through in the last 12 months is definitely going to take us forward. They’re all very hungry.”
Burgess announced his decision to return to England back in February, signing a three-year deal with Bath to play rugby union.
Maguire also said South Sydney fans don’t need to fear a premiership hangover, claiming the defending premiers won’t suffer from complacency in 2015.
“We have our standards set from when we had last pre-season so we’re looking at those and seeing where we fit moving forward,” Maguire added.
“There is quite a lot of excitement around the club with [the premiership win] and the euphoria makes you want more of that but… we realise we have to put in the hard work to achieve these sort of things.”
“I don’t think complacent is a word I’d use to describe our environment but it is up to us to do the little things and achieve the things we have done to this point [to avoid it].”
Photo: Mark Kolbe/Getty Images.
