Tom Burgess works out with NFL team

Tom Burgess could make a switch to the NFL. Photo / Getty

Tom Burgess could be the latest NRL star to defect to the NFL.

The 23-year-old South Sydney Rabbitohs and English international prop trained at tight end with the New York Giants on Thursday, a little over a year after Jarryd Hayne quit the NRL and headed to the US.

If Burgess makes it on the Eli Manning-led Giants he will have an Aussie teammate, punter Brad Wing.

"Could he be the next Jarryd Hayne?" ESPN reporter Adam Schefter, who first announced Burgess' work out with the Giants, wrote on Twitter.

Hayne, currently on the San Francisco 49ers' practice squad, was identified as a running back and punt returner.

The bigger Burgess, at 196cm tall and 120kg, has been pencilled in as a tight end, a position that NFL teams have had great success in transforming athletes from other sports into elite players.

Other player the Giants worked out today: TE Tom Burgess. An English rugby star. Could he be the next Jarryd Hayne?

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) December 3, 2015

Tight ends are tall, mobile, high leapers with good hands used by quarterbacks as an alternative offensive weapon to wide-receivers.

Their size offer easy targets for quarterback passes and create mis-matches for smaller defensive backs.

Some of the NFL's best tight ends have come from other sports, most often basketball including Tony Gonzalez, Antonio Gates, Demetrius Harris and Julius Thomas.

The 198cm tall Australian-born rugby union lock Hayden Smith was a tight end with the New York Jets from 2012 to 2013.

Burgess, who is contracted to the Rabbitohs until the end of 2018, had earlier this year expressed an interest in playing NFL.

"I have shown interest in NFL for a while and I'd spoken to a few of my friends about how I'd love to go there," Burgess said in May.

-AAP