England international Sam Burgess was identified as the player in the midst of a sexting scandal after it emerged his Facebook account was used to solicit a nude video chat with a 23-year-old woman in May.
But despite the controversy, the rugby league star gave an impressive performance on the field on Saturday night.
Burgess helped his South Sydney Rabbitohs side to a spectacular 13-12 semi-final win against the St George Illawarra Dragons at Sydney’s ANZ stadium, despite copping boos from the crowd.
England international Sam Burgess (pictured right, with brother George) helped his South Sydney Rabbitohs side to a win in the NRL semi-final on Saturday evening
Despite copping boos from the crowd, Burgess quickly found his feet as the Rabbitohs defeated the St George Illawarra Dragons 13-12
Pregnant wife Phoebe Burgess pulled out of a Randwick Racecourse appearance on Saturday
He made 29 tackles to help his team win the game, with the winning hat-ricks scored by halfback Adam Reynolds in the final 10 minutes of the match.
‘We’ve won a game today but we’ve not won anything really, there’s still a game in front of us next week so don’t burn too much emotional energy,’ Burgess said after the match.
‘We handled some pressure, Cameron Murray was great through the back end and made a big play and Adam Reynolds was cool under pressure.
‘We were in the washing machine doing plenty of work but I thought we dug deep we can be better in a lot of areas which is a good thing.’
Coach of the losing Dragons team, Paul McGregor, offered his congratulations to the Rabbitohs after the match.
‘It stings but congratulations to @SSFCRABBITOHS. We had it, we lost it, we had it, we lost it,’ he said.
Burgess made 29 tackles as the Rabbitohs went one step closer to claiming the 2018 NRL premiership
Coach of the losing Dragons team Paul McGregor offered his congratulations to the Rabbitohs after the match
Burgess’ (pictured) Facebook account was used to solicit a nude video chat with a 23-year-old woman in May this year
Burgess was on Saturday identified as the player in the midst of the Rabbitoh’s sexting scandal.
Stills from the chat show a man exposing himself and a man with his pants down.
It has not been confirmed whether Burgess was the man in the footage but the social media account was verified to his name.
Just hours after the scandal came to light, his 26-week-pregnant wife and mother-of-one Phoebe Burgess pulled out of a Randwick Racecourse appearance, which she was expected to attend as an ambassador of Colgate.