George Burgess is aiming to emulate elder brothers Sam and Luke by making his England Academy debut on Saturday.
Both siblings progressed through the academy ranks before going on to forge successful professional careers and now the Bulls prop is next in line.
Currently the subject of speculation surrounding his future – with a switch to join Sam at South Sydney Rabbitohs set to be confirmed this week – 18-year-old Burgess will represent his country in their two-Test series against Australia Schoolboys.
“It’s a great honour for me to be part of the Academy and to be able to follow in my brothers’ footsteps,” he said.
“It’s great to be able to play for your country and hopefully that will lead on to even bigger things like my brothers have done, so hopefully I can go on to do the same.
“This is the first block in most of our careers and hopefully we’ll all be able to go on from here and play for the senior England side and it would be a great honour for all of us to be able to do that.”
The first match takes place at Barrow’s Mark Coward Stadium on Saturday, before a rematch in Castleford the following Friday.
Burgess is joined in the England set-up by Bradford team-mates Adam O’Brien and Cain Southernwood and goes into the series confident of success.
He said: “I’d really like to put in a big performance against the Aussies. I think everyone always seems to think that they’re better than us but I feel this is our time to show people that we can perform as well and we can beat them.
“The Australian side will have had a lot of warm-up games before they come to play us, so we’ll be expecting them to be able to play good football. But we’ve got a good side here with plenty of talent and we all feel like we can match them.
“There are lots and lots of talented players in this side and it’s one of the best groups of players that I’ve seen in a while.”
Tickets for both clashes can be purchased on the day and cost £3 for adults and £2 concessions.
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