Williams our greatest athlete
SBW deserves tag for on and off-field achievements
The dust has just about settled on the remarkable career of Sonny Bill Williams, and it’s time to celebrate the man who is (arguably) this country’s greatest athlete. As tragic as Covid-19 has been, it has provided a few unintended benefits for sport in this part of the world, most notably a chance for rugby to regroup.
It will also contribute to the return of Williams in the NRL, a chance for all of us to remember how special he has been.
Yes, SBW will always have some serious black marks on the CV, led by his appalling attitude towards the World Cup Kiwis in 2013. But the time to forgive and forget has long since passed.
At the age of 35, SBW will re-engage with the Sydney Roosters, the NRL champions, and this is no easy assignment, given he has been out of the highest quality league competition since 2014.
His body, as good as he keeps it, is in for much more of a shock than it was due to experience with the ill-fated Toronto Wolfpack.
But he’s always been up for a challenge, which is a large part of his attraction.
By world standards, SBW would hardly rate in discussions over the finest multi-sport superstar. I’m guessing the Americans Babe Didrikson Zaharias and Jim Thorpe are pretty much untouchable in that department.
New Zealand’s only answer to those two is George Smith, a champion jockey, athlete, rugby and league player of the late 1800s and early 1900s.
But beyond that, there is SBW, and his impact goes beyond the stunning offloads, the big hits, the interrupted league career which has him in the NRL Immortal frame, an All Blacks career including three World Cup appearances, stints as a professional boxer, and an unfortunately short appearance in the Olympic sevens.
What I’ve come to love about SBW is he dared to be different. This included everything from jumping in and out of rugby union, embracing a religion that is not widespread in this country, raising the refugee issue, starting a mental health support group within the
All Blacks, employing a combative agent, refusing to endorse certain products, and so on and so forth.
The great characters — and, yes, we used to have plenty — have gone out of New Zealand sport. SBW’s career coincided with the reign of Richie McCaw and Dan Carter, two legends who were also the most boring sports stars in history.
That’s why SBW deserves “The Greatest” tag. It’s the all-round character.
And it is Sonny Bill Williams, the man, who the Roosters are so keen to get back. He is seen as the player whose presence perhaps did most to turn around the glamour club in 2013. They know he still has magic dust to sprinkle on his teammates, even if not so much of it will land on the playing surface any more.
And from the media point of view, I would say this: thanks very much, Sonny Bill Williams. We would have been lost without you.
He is among the few current players who will still be talked about in a hundred years.
Mind you, he would come nowhere near Andy Haden, the former All Blacks lock, as the biggest dare-to-be-different personality in All Blacks history.
Haden saw and reacted to the bigger picture in a way no player has come close to touching, although a man of such self-confidence almost inevitably has significant stains on his record.
SBW would also struggle to match the Jonah Lomu aura, although he has given it a decent shot. But he is unique in a sadly vanilla sporting environment.
For a decent period, SBW was New Zealand rugby’s only real reminder that there’s more to sport than counting World Cup wins, offloads and tackles. He was pretty good at those as well.