South Sydney coach Michael Maguire says rugby-bound forward Sam Burgess's man-of-the-match performance against the Roosters in Thursday night's NRL season opener shows what a team player he is.
"I think he played really well and he's all about the team," Maguire said when asked about Burgess's barnstorming performance.
"Sammy's spoken to the group, our focus now is just about each round and I thought Sam showed that with the way he played tonight, he played a real team performance."
Maguire said the most pleasing aspect of the win was the fact the team played for 80 minutes.
"The boys stuck at the things we've done that we spoke about prior to the game... for them to defend the way they did, and we stuck at our attack," he said.
"It's good to see the things you practice throughout the pre-season come into play tonight; they were very focused.
"We've spoken about that a lot through the pre season. That's Round 1 so we're aware of that, we've got to make sure we take that into each game now."
Asked about the star turn from hat-trick hero Greg Inglis, Maguire said there were any number of players he could single out for praise.
"John [Sutton] sitting next to me, to Issac [Luke], Joe Picker in his first game [produced] a special tackle underneath the posts there on big [Jared Warea-]Hargreaves close to the line, plus Lote Tuqiri brought a lot of energy, right across the team. GI gets to do those special things off the back of the team."
