Lay off SBW – ABs coach
Steve Hansen is revelling in the way Sonny Bill Williams is getting ‘‘down and dirty’’, and has slapped down the big midfielder’s detractors by saying they have got it all wrong.
Despite making 23 tackles in the All Blacks’ 25-24 win over the Springboks in Cape Town on October 8, Williams has been blitzed by some critics who believe he has lost the ability to tickle-up opponents with the attacking skills that made him such a unique force at second five-eighth.
When All Blacks coach Hansen, having arrived in Brisbane on Monday night to prepare his team for the match against the Wallabies this weekend, was asked to provide an assessment of Williams’ form he let rip.
‘‘He is playing well,’’ Hansen said in reference to the big No 12.
‘‘When he is a flashy player everyone moans about him being too flashy, and that he doesn’t do the hard work.
"At the moment he is doing all the hard work and probably not as much as the other stuff that people get excited about. But he is in the leadership group, he is leading well and has a major influence on the young guys with his training habits.
‘‘He is getting down and dirty and doing the hard work. We are quite happy with him.’’
Given Williams, 32, ruptured his Achilles tendon during the Rio Olympics in August last year – a ‘‘notoriously slow injury to come back from’’ – Hansen was satisfied with what the midfielder had achieved during his comeback.
The coach’s staunch defence of the midfielder surely means it is unlikely that calls for Williams to be chopped from the side to face the Aussies at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night will be heeded.
Although Williams’ attacking form hasn’t reached a five-star ranking this season, and his critics climbed into him for fumbling a pass and being robbed twice by Boks hooker Malcolm Marx at the breakdown at Newlands, his defence has largely been accurate and aggressive.
Getting off the ground quickly and re-entering the defensive line meant he clocked-up repeat sets of tackles against the South Africans. But Hansen said there has been no instruction to the former NRL star to pare back his offloading game to allow him to concentrate on the unglamourous work.
‘‘He is trying to make good decisions and sometimes, like all players, he gets them right and sometimes he doesn’t,’’ Hansen added.
‘‘He has always been a player who has been loved by you blokes (in the media) or hated by you blokes. It is a 50-50 split. When he does things wrong all the haters get on top of it, and when he does things right all the good guys get on top of it.
‘‘He is a good rugby player.’’
Whether Williams will have Beauden Barrett starting at firstfive alongside him for the match against the Wallabies hinges on the playmaker recovering from the head knock he suffered against the Boks.
Hansen said Barrett was still getting headaches, and has not felt fully fit after trainings.
If he isn’t right, Lima Sopoaga will start and there is a chance the uncapped Richie Mo’unga will be listed on the bench. If Barrett is declared fit, Mo’unga will be released to play for Canterbury in their Mitre 10 Cup semifinal against North Harbour.
Inviting three openside flankers in Sam Cane, Matt Todd and Ardie Savea to Brisbane was a reaction to the fact the selectors believed they already had enough cover in the backs for the injured Nehe Milner-Skudder.
Rather than pick Taranaki’s Seta Tamanivalu, who made two test appearances against Wales last year, to join the squad it was decided the three No 7s should be given the prove their worth at training.
Todd is clearly making gains on the other two opensiders. international