SONNY BILL OR $ONNY BILL??

Sonny Bill Williams came back to New Zealand rugby via Toulon (who he played 30 odd games for) accompanied with well wishes, hype and fanfare. He had starred for the Kiwis and for the Bulldogs, his mix of high-octane shoulder charges, busts and offloads a fan pleaser. Given his high profile midnight run from the Bulldogs breaking a multi-million dollar five year contract in the process, signed so recently that the ink was still wet on it, he had a lot to prove to the New Zealand public. It all started off well. He had a solid NPC and a highly promising All Blacks tour to the Home Nations in 2010. In 2011, he started off strongly in the Super 15 and earned kudos for donating $100,000 to the Canterbury earthquake appeal. But then came the fall. He focused on a mid-season boxing bout against an out of shape beneficiary to the detriment of his rugby. He won but not with style. It was a strangely tentative, almost timid display from a man who grossly physically outgunned his opponent. After the bout, he lost his edge in his rugby. Then, he reneged on a verbal commitment to remain in rugby in New Zealand. Public sentiment began to change, to shift beneath his feet. A poll showed that many New Zealanders now don’t want him to resign with the New Zealand Rugby Union.

On All Black debut.

So what went wrong with Sonny Bill? The thing is that is definitely two sides to him. In interviews and on the field, he seems a team player, a humble man who just wants to play footy. But then, you hear reports of a different Sonny Bill, a guy balanced with a chip on each shoulder out to do the best for himself and screw any loyalty. To be fair, this version of Sonny Bill is usually associated with the dealings of his manager, Khoder Nasser and another of his high profile clients, former league star and boxer Anthony Mundine (Quade Cooper, the exciting Wallabies flyhalf is also on his books). Nasser is an outsider looking in, a renegade who is trying to change the system from the outside. Maybe he wants to change the system so it benefits his charges; a cynical person would say he wants to change it to benefit himself first then his client. This may be disingenuous. Nasser has a reputation to fight ferociously for his clients. Many boxing authorities in Australia appreciate the work Nasser has done with Mundine, but managing a boxer is different from league or union. Boxing is all about self-promotion, bravado and an independent spirit. In the ring, a warrior only has his own strength, both physical and mental to rely on. A player in a team sport like SBW is only as strong as his team and thus has to fit into a team structure. Highly physical sports like league and union, even more than soccer, thrive on forming bonds, on forming a brotherhood. After all, it is almost like trench warfare at times. People don’t appreciate players if they seem to think they are bigger than the team or the game. SBW is starting to appear that way and he hasn’t put in the hard yards into New Zealand rugby to warrant special attention as yet, unlike a Carter or a McCaw.

His zealous manager, Khoder Nasser.

Apparently, Nasser’s favourite book is Malcolm X’s biography, a man of great passion, a man who fought outside the system he found himself in. Nasser is certainly passionate about his men. It was him who raged for hours with the Canterbury coaches about William’s omission from the Canterbury team for a game last year. The comment was made that “Sonny has never been dropped in his career”. True, but SBW has never played for the world’s best team, fighting for a place against one of the world’s top players, one who has fought back from his own disappointments to cement his place in the All Blacks. No player holds his place by right, especially in the All Blacks.

Anthony Mundine is probably Australia’s most disliked sportsman, despite his obvious skills in both league and boxing. Unfortunately, Mundine, or the Man, appears to be SBW’s guru, with Sonny Bill following Mundine’s conversion to Islam and dabbling in the boxing ring (to be fair to Mundine, he has had a very successful fight career, including winning the Super middleweight WBA belt twice). Unlike SBW, who has always been respectful when speaking to the media, Mundine is outspoken. He said that 9/11 was warranted due to America’s role in the Islamic world and always complained that he was deprived representative honours in rugby league because he is Aboriginal (ironically, rugby league is probably the Australian sport that is most supportive of Aboriginal people. If you don’t believe that, look at Australian cricket that has had very few players of Aboriginal descent). 

Does Mundine have Sonny Bill's ear?

Williams is his own man. But Mundine does seem to have William’s ear which troubles me. Recently, Mundine is what is he saying to Sonny Bill about not being the first choice for the All Blacks.

“Why the hell ain't the all blacks playing SBW ... I think it's crazy???he one of the best if not the best backs in game!!!is there an agenda???"

"Fans wanna see SBW?? and the centres now are both good but they ain't no Sonny ... seriously there is knowbody betta ...he revolutionized rugby”

"Nonu and smith both class players but come on peeps they not on the same level as SBW”

Twitter posts made after he was left out of the All Blacks squad.

Maybe this is Mundine’s way of supporting his stable mate. If so, so be it. But the comments concern me on two levels. First of all, Mundine may be filling William’s with thoughts that he has been unjustly treated. And that is really not the case. To be fair, he probably should have been given a start against either the Springboks or the Wallabies at home early this year. He made little impact coming on as a replacement in those games and in his only test start in 2011, albeit in a weakened All Black side, he failed to shine. Ma’a Nonu’s form at the business end of the Super 15 and in the early internationals this year has been so compelling that there is no way Williams deserves a place ahead of him. Second of all, the talk of an agenda worries me. It clearly can’t be a racial one. While SBW is of Samoan descent, so is Nonu. At least ten players in the New Zealand World Cup squad are Polynesian. The agenda can’t be because of the ongoing contract negotiations or else SBW would surely have been given more than one start. The agenda remains unclear to me; unless the agenda is to sideline the first Muslim All Black which I don’t believe for a second.

Ma'a Nonu: William's AB rival and probably the best 12 in the world at the moment.

What William’s needs to do is recapture the form that has deserted him in recent times. He needs to attack the line with the intent to break it, not just attack the line so he can off-load the ball. Recently, he seems willing to take the ball into contact rather than really back himself to break the line. People point to the fact that he topped the list of All Blacks players attending rucks and mauls in the last test he played against the Springboks. As admirable as this is, it isn’t his core job. His core job is to make tackles and break the line to set up those outside him. He needs to get back to what he does best. Others point out that he needs to play more rugby union. I would point to over 50 top level matches for Toulon, Canterbury, the Crusaders and the All Blacks and say that he has had enough time to get his head around the game.

Sports players sometimes need to stick to basics or pay the price for it. For example, Muttiah Muralitharan, the outstanding Sri Lankan off-spinner, developed a doosra, a ball that spins opposite to the way it appears it should, the equivalent of a leg spinner’s googly. By developing this ball, he had to change the way he bowled his stock delivery. His off spinner now had to be bowled much closely to middle stump for the doosra to be effective. It meant that it negated to a certain extent his ability to get wickets with his stock ball, a big, turning off spinner and it became easier for batsmen to pick off singles, as his line strayed more often onto a batsmen’s pads. The doosra probably reduced his ability to take out top-order, quality batsmen but increased his ability to dismiss lower order batsmen. 

Muralitharan:Evolution probably slightly diminished his game.

His rival, Shane Warne, from Australia, went through a slump mid-career but came back strongly. By the end of his career, he only had two balls, a leg-spinner and a straight ball (he said he had several variations of this ball but I doubt that). By sticking to basics, he bowled as well as he ever did, despite the fact that he didn’t have the leg spinner’s classic other deliveries, the googly (Warne’s googly was always poor and he only really bowled it to lower order batsmen) or the flipper (Warne did have one of the best flippers of all time but it became less effective after shoulder surgery). The comparison of the two can be used to show that basics are often best.

Another thing I feel is holding SBW back is his famous off-loading ability. He now looks for the off-load before breaking the line, as if fans will be disappointed if he didn’t get a couple of miracle off-loads away per game. I compare it to Jonah Lomu, who shot to fame after scoring that memorable try against the English in 1995, where he trampled Mike Catt in the process. The problem with that was that he saw, and people saw, how easy it was for him to just steamroll players. It meant he often took to just trying to run over opponents rather than try to beat them with his footwork (which was great for such a big man). The thing that he was famous for damaged and limited his game to a certain extent. I fear the same is happening with Sonny Bill.

The moment that changed Jonah's life forever.

Returning to league may be his best option (he can return to the NRL in 2013). It suits his style of play better than union, he can put in those big shoulder charges in league which are illegal in union and his attacking game is not negated by him helping out at ruck and maul time. The off-load is more of an attacking weapon in league where teams only have 6 tackles to break the line. Union players can be more patient in the lead-up to a try. I hope that SBW will resign with the NZRU as his presence in New Zealand is very beneficial to the game here. When he is on form, he is a fan favourite and he would push hard for a starting spot. At present, he is no-where near Nonu and will struggle to find a place on the bench, given his surprisingly lack of impact off the bench for both the All Blacks and Crusaders this year, and the fact that he can only really play at 12. SBW needs to know that there is no agenda at play, just for the first time in his career, he is not the best man for the job. How he fights for it will be his legacy in New Zealand rugby.