Sonny Bill Williams will be back in black. Is it time for everyone to start loving him?
SONNY BILL WILLIAMS WILL BE BACK IN BLACK THIS NOVEMBER AND IT IS TIME, SAYS GREGOR PAUL, FOR NEW ZEALANDERS TO EMBRACE ONE OF THE GREATEST ATHLETES OF THE PROFESSIONAL AGE.
He’s back and a nation should be thankful. Time is running out for much of New Zealand: at least half the country is in danger of being witness to one of the greatest athletes of the modern age and failing to notice.
And they won’t notice because they are blind to the qualities of Sonny Bill Williams. Blind because they can’t break their determination to dislike him. Williams is the most polarising figure in New Zealand rugby – New Zealand sport. No one sits on the fence – it is either love him or hate him and it seems about equal in the polls.
There have been a couple of genuinely misguided moments that haven’t reflected well on Williams. There was his illconceived double- act press conference with Ali Williams a few days before the World Cup final when they answered questions for each other. It wasn’t funny and while neither may have cared they took a towelling in the media for it, they both took note when Brad Thorn let them know he wasn’t happy about it.
Williams’ decision last year to declare himself unavailable to play in the Rugby League World Cup only to change his mind after the squad was picked didn’t win him many supporters either. The fact he was reinstated at the expense of one of the original selections was not his decision, but it highlighted that he should never have made that a possibility in the first place.
But really, what those two incidents are testament to, is that Williams’ greatest crime in many people’s eyes is that he has dared to be different. He is a managed commodity in a professional age and simply done what hundreds of thousands of athletes in other sports around the world have done and make decisions that ultimately put him and his career first.
It’s neither selfish nor disloyal to chase a dream. Even his biggest sin – the breaking of his five- year Bulldogs contract in 2008 – wasn’t such a big deal really. He was young and misguided when he signed that agreement and what were his choices after that? See it out at half his market value with a club that was descending into chaos – or take definitive action?
Contracts are broken all the time in professional sport but the media and sporting public are selective about which ones they care about. A handful of All Blacks last year were in breach of their respective contracts by not wearing mouthguards. That seems like a more legitimate reason to be outraged than a young player quitting a duff club before he was supposed to.
But reason and perspective aren’t often, if ever, applied when it comes to evaluating Williams. The rugby fraternity is particularly divided by him. The game is still held hostage by outdated and near mythical codes. There is this whole notion that players should be loyal to one club for life. It never happened even in the amateur days but that is the stick with which Williams is so regularly beaten. He is, according to those who feel they are the keepers of rugby’s great secrets, disrespectful to the traditions and history of the game.
It’s time for all that negativity to be laid to rest: for Williams to be forgiven and then embraced. He is nothing more than a product of Generation Y: good enough to have options and smart enough to know he should take them.
For those unable to move on, determined to cast Williams as villain, there is one significant fact that should be considered. The man responsible for bringing Williams to New Zealand in 2010 and getting him back; the man who has been his mentor and guiding light, is rugby purist Wayne Smith. There isn’t a more straight up, innovative, clever, honest man in world rugby than Smith. His integrity and passion for the game are beyond reproach and in Williams he has seen only good.
The story of Smith and Williams began in 2009 when the former flew to Europe to check on Daniel Carter and a few other ex- pats. Williams, who was playing in Toulon, was on Smith’s list.
“I was doing the rounds,” recalls Smith. “I’d gone to see DC [ Carter], Nick Evans, Greg Somerville, Carl Hayman and a few others. I met Sonny more to tell him that if he ever felt like coming back to New Zealand and giving the All Blacks a crack, we’d support him and do what we could to help. At that time, though, he said he wasn’t sure that he was ever going to be good enough to even think about that.
“When I got home I had to file a report about the trip and I said that I thought we’d never hear from Sonny again. I was astounded that I did. He said he was starting to get to grips with rugby and was playing a bit better and that he was interested.”
There was inevitable hype once Williams signed with the New Zealand Rugby Union – and just as inevitably there was the usual misinformation.
Williams didn’t sign on a mega bucks deal. He was paid a salary commensurate with his experience and standing in rugby. He was allowed to box as part of his contract, purely, to enable him to make up the massive shortfall in his income.
Nor was there any secret deal that promised him All Black selection. He’d have to earn that like everyone else. The selectors were obviously going to be interested because he was an athlete with unique skills and a different background. They could see the potential but Williams had to give them enough to be sure.
The reality for Williams was that he made his first appearance on New Zealand soil for the lowly Belfast club in August 2010 – the same day as the All Blacks played the Wallabies in Christchurch.
It was cold, muddy and devoid of glamour. Yet Williams gave it everything and half an hour after the game as the light was fading, he was still signing autographs.
There’s no point in trying to depict Williams as a saint – he’s not. But a lot of the best aspects of who he is and what he’s truly like don’t make headlines. He gives generously of his time but doesn’t seek publicity. Even when he gave $ 100,000 of one of his boxing purses to the Christchurch Earthquake Fund, he was barely acknowledged for a gesture that was extraordinarily kind and selfless.
“He hadn’t been living in Christchurch all that long and he was staying in a high- rise apartment block that had been swinging like a lollipop,” says Smith. “That had been pretty scary and had shaken him up and yet he made this incredible gesture of giving $ 100,000. How many other people would have done that?”
What made it particularly selfless was that Williams never settled in Christchurch. He chose to play there because he felt it would be best for his rugby education. The Crusaders were stacked with big names and who better to play next to than Carter?
The senior players, though, never seemed to warm to Williams. He arrived with a media circus – which wasn’t his doing – and that made life awkward. The Crusaders are all about paying your dues: of climbing up the ladder through time in the jersey and performance and here was this newcomer who superficially gave the impression he’d done it all.
There are also suggestions of unfairness and pettiness in the way Williams was treated. He’d provide tickets to his boxing bouts en masse to his team- mates and yet when he looked for reciprocal deals for rugby games, he was bang out of luck.
It took until the final stages of the World Cup for Williams to win over the All Black leadership group. As coach Graham Henry said in the week of the semi- final: “He hasn’t played a lot of test match rugby and he’s not been in this environment very long. He gets a lot of exposure so there is this huge expectation on him. I guess when you haven’t been in the environment very long, other people take notice of that. He’s enjoying it and other people have accepted him.”
Most people go to India to find themselves. Williams did that in Hamilton. His switch to the Chiefs was the making of him. His career had taken him from Auckland to Sydney, Toulon and Christchurch – but he never felt as comfortable there as he did in Hamilton.
Williams and the Chiefs were the perfect fit. He found true friendship with Liam Messam. Those two became inseparable and everything about the Chiefs was right for Williams.
He had daily access to Smith. He had in Dave Rennie a head coach who kept things simple and clear. Around him were players chosen partly because they could play and partly because they fitted the mantra of being ‘ good buggers’.
Williams was out of the gold fish bowl of Sydney. He was away from the cold shoulder he’d been presented in Christchurch and everything was right. He could focus on being himself and playing rugby. The results were spectacular.
Encouraged to run more himself and as part of a team that flowed effortlessly, Williams was a revelation. He racked up the running metres, improved his distribution, his awareness, his timing... his everything. He was the man around whom the Chiefs built their campaign and he owed his success to good old fashioned hard work.
Of all the accusations Williams has faced, the one that he’s a show pony is easily the most ridiculous. The undisputed truth is that Williams has an incredible work ethic on and off the field. On it, he empties the tank – is quick off the floor, looks for tackles, looks to get his hands on the ball and wants to give everything.
Off it, he never stops asking questions; never leaves a stone unturned in his pursuit of excellence. “He has this voracious appetite to learn,” says Smith. “He’s always searching for knowledge and he’s almost religious in his research. His whole ethos is about how he can get better each week. When he was with us at the Chiefs he had one game where he didn’t go so well. “That was against the Sharks in Durban. I saw Khoder [ Williams’ agent Nasser] that night and asked where Sonny was. He said he was in his room and I should go up to try to cheer him up. When I got there, Sonny had his legs in his Norma Tec machine - something he had bought with his own money – and was talking to a couple of South African test cricketers.
“He’d made contact with them because he reckoned cricketers knew how to pick themselves up after a bad performance. A few hours after the game and he was already searching for answers where most guys would have been sitting getting pissed in the bar trying to drown their sorrows.”
Williams is probably at the zenith of his powers. At 29 he’s in that perfect equilibrium where his physicality is matched by his awareness and his experience. He’s got a couple more years left where his body will have the ability to capitalise on his vision: he’ll see things in advance and be able to get himself to where he needs to be. Williams has committed to play rugby until the end of 2016 and he could be about to play his way into history as one of the greats. It will start in November when he tours the US and Europe with the All Blacks.
Williams was a possibility to tour before Ma’a Nonu broke his arm against the Springboks in September and ruled himself out for the remainder of the year. He was a must have after that – a player the All Blacks needed as much as they wanted.
Ryan Crotty is a solid option in the All Black midfield. A grafter, a learner and a good man. He’ll empty himself for the cause, give all he has and look like he just about belongs in test football. He’ll get plenty of game time in Europe but he’d be the first to admit there is a considerable difference in what he offers compared with Williams.
At 1.94m and 108kg, Williams is a rare specimen. The raw stats don’t allude to just how strong he is, though. And he will get stronger. When the All Blacks got their hands on him the first time round, they felt there was ample room for improvement. “What is scary is that physically he is quite impressive but he’s quite raw,” said strength and conditioning coach Nic Gill. “What’s exciting is that his potential is huge. I dare say he trained hard when he played league but since then he has been mixing and matching things. He’s had a few injuries so I think he’s got quite a young training age for someone in this environment.
“But you wouldn’t think that looking at him. You look at him and you can see he has got enormous potential. We can get him stronger and quicker. He is powerful now but he is not as strong as he could be through a lot of areas - through his trunk and through his legs; everything could be stronger.”
It will be much the same this time round which is why the All Blacks asked the New Zealand Rugby Union board for an exemption to be able to pick Williams effectively straight out of the NRL.
Williams has spent the last two years conditioning himself to play league and while he’s fit, strong and agile – he still needs to get used to the speed endurance elements of rugby. He’ll make less
He has this voracious appetite to learn,” says Smith. “He’s always searching for knowledge and he’s almost religious in his research. His whole ethos is about how he can get better each week.’
tackles, probably carry the ball less in rugby, but he will have to cover more ground and yet still be high impact when he does enter collisions.
Gill is eager to begin that process of adapting Williams physically while All Black coach Steve Hansen also wants to fast- track the process of bringing Williams up to speed with the technical and tactical changes.
This is Williams’ second stint in rugby so the familiarity should return relatively quickly. It has to because Williams is going to be asked to play a big role in 2015 and be an integral figure in the bid to retain the World Cup.
“The reasons we want to take him on the end of year tour is because there are very limited test matches between now and the World Cup,” says Hansen. “If he was to be in a successful Chiefs side next
Wayne Smith
year and they were playing in the final, for example, then he wouldn’t be available for some of those test matches.
“It becomes difficult then to get him back into the ways of the All Blacks. Not so much back in the ways of rugby, because I think he will pick that up very quickly... he has all of Super Rugby to do that, but it’s getting back into the way we do things which is subtly different - we have seen that with all the players.
“We don’t know what physical shape he will be in. He may come on the tour and not play any games, he may play, we’ll have to see.”
Hansen has a fair inkling what kind of shape Williams will be in – immaculate and ready to go. He also has a fair idea that Williams will play on tour but that it is best in this particular case to under promise and over deliver.