Sam Burgess admits he needed a ‘chat’ with England team doc over knee injury

SAM Burgess has revealed how he had to be told in no uncertain terms what he had to do to possibly save his World Cup.

However, he eventually decided England’s team doctor Professor Chris Brookes really does know best.

Now he is ready to come back in after learning just an hour after the opening game that all was not lost.

Burgess was initially in danger of not even completing one half of the tournament after suffering a knee injury in the opening game against Australia.

Just three weeks later, the back-rower is back in England’s side for Sunday’s quarter-final against Papua New Guinea.

But it was not without a frank exchange of views as he initially attempted to play on.

“It wasn’t an argument but we had a chat at half-time,” recalled Burgess. “Chris advised me the best thing to do was take his medical advice and it was the right thing to do.

“It wasn’t like me saying, ‘I’m OK’ and him disagreeing.

“I've had similar knee injuries before. The staff made the right choice and its paid off now. I'm back fit for this weekend.

“I'd have finished the game against Australia if I could and it was down to me. It's a bad habit of mine. I always try push it with injury.

“I didn't know what had happened at first. I just felt something that wasn’t quite right I heard a pop. I always try to push it a little bit.

“I tried not to worry too much until I got the results and you can waste too much energy doing that.

“But it was about an hour after the game when I found out exactly what I’d done. I had a scan at the stadium within 20 minutes of the full-time whistle and we had a rough idea of the injury and took it from there.

“We got some specialist advice the following day and came up with a plan and it's all worked out so far.

“We’ve done the maximum amount you can do with this kind of injury. We strengthened all the areas around it.

“A medial ligament is just instability - in controls the lower part of your leg. I just had to strengthen the instability up and let the tendon heal.”

South Sydney star Burgess, 28, will play in the second row again Papua New Guinea in Melbourne – and if needed, he says he can play the whole 80 minutes.

His first full training session ended with some players lifting him over their shoulders, not that the man himself was that keen.

He added: “I was thinking, ‘Set of idiots - why would you do that with a load of cameras around?’

“The joke was that they were here for my session. That they wanted a day off but I wanted to train. They said that the session was all for me, although it wasn’t, the coach wanted to train regardless.

“James Graham and Luke Gale decided to continue their form of being team pranksters and idiots and picked me up at the end of training.”

Whatever Burgess does, he will have to go some to match what brother Thomas did against Lebanon, score a 45 metre try.

He will just be happy with doing his job properly as England reach the semi-finals.

He said: “They don’t come round too often for big guys. He finished it pretty well.

“But to be honest he’s not mentioned it, and fair play, I’d have not shut up about it!”