Manchester United legend Rio Ferdinand gets Rob Burrow to reveal his toughest teammate

Rob Burrow has taken to podcasting as he did to rugby league, with great ease and success, and the latest guest on Burrow’s pod is former Premier League footballer Rio Ferdinand.

Ferdinand was at one point a Leeds legend just like Burrow, but he left Leeds United for rivals Manchester United for a record fee for a defender at the time, making him enemy number one in Leeds for quite some time.

It wasn’t a transfer that Ferdinand would go on to regret though as he acted as a mainstay in Manchester United’s defence during an era of great success under Sir Alex Ferguson, the centre back making over 450 appearances for the Red Devils and lifting six Premier League titles as well as one Champions League.

That tally of Premier Leagues falls short of Burrow’s eight Super League victories that came during his time as part of the club’s golden generation.

Burrow now is running his podcast ‘Seven’ in which he asks elite sportsmen and women about their careers however it was one of the questions that Ferdinand asked Burrow that elicited an interesting response.

Ferdinand detailed his transfer from Leeds to United for which he copped plenty of abuse, but he also spoke on his love for rugby league as well, a sport he’s clearly a fan of as he reeled off the names of some of the legends of the game.

As the podcast came to a close he flipped the tables and asked Burrow who the ‘hardest’ teammate was that he had during his long career.

Ferdinand said: “I would like to finish with asking you my own question. I used to watch Leeds Rhinos back in the day, I prefer Rugby League to Rugby Union actually, and I used to see you jinking about and dodging tackles and going under peoples legs and stuff; but I’d love to know who was your hardest teammate or opponent?

“When I used to watch your team, Keith Senior was hard as nails, Jamie Peacock was hard as nails. Adrian Morley used to run through people, Kevin Sinfield was obviously a great captain as well, so I need to know out of them who is your hardest teammate or opponent. If I had to put a bet on it’s Adrian Morley.”

Burrow confirmed Ferdinand’s suspicions in that Morley was in fact his hardest teammate, leading the football pundit to underline that he is a true rugby league fan: “How did I know that, you can see I’m a genuine fan.”

The full podcast can be listened to here.