SAM Burgess has been told to go back where he came from — rugby league.

The English rugby experiment has endured a nightmare Rugby World Cup which has seen England eliminated from its own tournament after three matches and resulted in coach Stuart Lancaster’s decision to drop him from the Three Lions’ final Pool A match against Uruguay on Sunday morning in Manchester.

On the same day #BlameBurgess became a social media phenomenon in which the former Rabbitohs star was accused of being the cause for England’s disastrous Rugby World Cup campaign, Burgess was told by the English press it’s time to abandon his failed rugby code-switch.

Lancaster earlier this week denied reports linking Burgess with a return to rugby league in the NRL or Super League club Leeds Rhinos, while Burgess’ coach at Premiership Rugby club Bath Mike Ford today declared Burgess intends to stay in rugby until the next World Cup in Japan in 2019.

Ford said Burgess will extend his contract with Bath for a further two years and target the 2019 World Cup as a back-rower.

Burgess signed a three-year deal with Bath until the end of 2017 when he moved from South Sydney to the English rugby club.

“Proving he is an international back-rower is the big challenge now for Sam,” Ford told The Times.

“He’s always been a No. 6 for us, no question. We’ve talked about next time the England squad gets selected, his goal’s got to be to be there as a six.

“The last conversation I had with him, he was going to extend his contract with us and he wanted to go for the next World Cup. He is going to play for us for the next few years. He loves rugby union, he is settled in Bath and he knows he is a six.

“He said to me, ‘I know I am a six.’ He enjoys being a six, he enjoys the game better because he is more involved.”

Burgess’ apparent decision to fight for redemption at rugby’s next showpiece event, hasn’t silenced his critics.

Telegraph writer Oliver Brown said this weekend’s Super League Grand Final at Old Trafford is where Burgess belongs.

“In the 13-man game, he remains admired to the point of idolatry, with Australian tourists still approaching him in Bath to sign their red-and-myrtle-green Souths jerseys,” Brown wrote.

“In union, sad as it is to relate, he is little more than a political football.

“With every tiny misstep, he only becomes more polarising, a source of resentment among union aficionados who believe he was too hastily fast-tracked to Test level and a sacred cow to league disciples who regard any questioning of his judgment as tantamount to heresy.

“He is the unwitting lightning rod for every qualm and criticism of this raw England team. Hence the ‘Blame Burgess’ phenomenon, spreading like wildfire in league’s core constituencies.

“There is no shame in this, but his union dream has just not come to fruition. It might seem premature to judge him so definitively within a year of his switch, but not when he painted a successful home World Cup as the pinnacle of his aspirations.

“There is an eminently good reason why betting has been suspended on a Burgess move to Leeds Rhinos, and why Australian pundits are openly forecasting his return to NRL. League is where he bleeds.

“It is the environment where his talents are universally appreciated, where he can flourish in the knowledge that his very presence will not stoke perpetual controversy.”