Sonny Bill isn’t going anywhere before 2019
OPINION: So, Sonny Bill Williams is heading back to the NRL at the end of this Super Rugby season.
And, how about those icebergs floating around Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour this morning?
Of course both those statements are pure fiction.
An Australian report that surfaced on Sunday about the All Blacks and Blues midfielder quitting New Zealand rugby at the end of this Super Rugby season to make a return to the National Rugby League via his old Sydney Roosters outfit appears to be wide of the mark on any number of fronts.
Jimmy Smith, who you might note played a good portion of his 120 NRL games for the Roosters, and now works as a pundit for Australia’s Fox Sports, has told a Sydney radio station Williams has already done the deal to return to the Bondi club ahead of this year’s NRL finals.
According to Smith, the 32-yearold
who has played 46 tests, and won two World Cups, with the All Blacks has been informed he won’t be part of their campaign through till 2019. ‘‘The mail is good,’’ he told
2KY’s Big Sports Weekend radio programme.
‘‘From what I understand, the deal is done. It will be a short stint at the end of the Super Rugby season.’’
That Super Rugby season doesn’t end until August 4. And the Roosters would have to register any contract for a player they intend to use in 2018 by June 30.
But a dates squeeze is far from the only hole in this story.
Williams is contracted with New Zealand Rugby through until the end of the 2019 season, and they have no intention of releasing him early.
Why would they? He is a hugely valuable commodity and they, no doubt, haggled long and hard to get him over the line on his current contract.
More importantly, this suggestion that he has been told he is not wanted for the 2019 World Cup in Japan is garbage.
Williams is highly valued by the All Blacks coaches and seen as a linchpin of their group that will be shooting for a hat-trick of global titles. Anybody who knows Williams also understands how motivated he is by historical feats such as that.
In fact, far from being disgruntled by anything Williams did in 2017, the All Blacks coaches were rapt by the way he finished his year so strongly on tour in November and rated him, by season end, one of their most consistent performers.
Sure, he took a bit of time to find his best form on the back of that big block of time out with the Achilles tendon injury. But once he hit that groove his performances were right up to the mark that has come to be expected from him.
Williams started all 13 of his tests for the All Blacks in 2017, missing only the third Lions matchup under suspension after his sending-off in Wellington.
It makes no sense whatsoever that Williams would suddenly have dropped out of their planning for 2019. In fact quite the opposite.
Which No 12 in the New Zealand game is breathing down his neck? Maybe Ryan Crotty. But the All Blacks coaches have made it clear they like the combination of both and are more than happy to play the Crusaders midfielder at No 13.
Rieko Ioane has expressed a desire to play at centre. But while he remains the world’s best left wing, neither the Blues nor All Blacks have any intention of shifting him anywhere. And Anton Lienert-Brown is young enough to continue to bide his time as the heir apparent.
There’s a reason Malakai Fekitoa has gone offshore. And Charlie Ngatai is about to depart. That All Blacks midfield is a settled unit at the moment, and that won’t change for the next few years.
Of course Williams has that connection with the Roosters, with whom he won a premiership in 2013, and is known to be close with club chairman Nick Politis.
But any move back to the NRL won’t come till after 2019, if at all.