SOUTH Sydney Rabbitohs appear to have ruled out the possibility of trying to prise Sam Burgess away from Warrington Wolves to take up their head coaching position.

Souths, with whom Burgess enjoyed a stellar playing career of nearly 200 games before moving onto the coaching staff, are looking for a replacement for Jason Demetriou, who was relieved of his duties on Tuesday following a poor start to the NRL season.

Burgess was one of Demetriou’s assistants before leaving the club last year ahead of joining The Wire and while the England legend has repeatedly affirmed his desire to honour the two-year contract he has at The Halliwell Jones Stadium, rumours of a return to Redfern have refused to die down.

However, chief executive Blake Solly insisted Souths “didn’t want to disrupt” what Burgess is trying to build with the club, pouring cold water on talk they could make an approach for his services.

“I don’t really know what Sam’s plans are,” he told the Australian media at a press conference.

“Sam I think has a two-year contract at Warrington and we’ve built up a lot of respect for Simon (Moran), Stuart (Middleton), Karl (Fitzpatrick) and the group over at Warrington so we wouldn’t want to disrupt that.

“My view is that this is Sam’s opportunity to show the world that he can coach and we wish him every success with that.”