Sonny Boy Williams-a waste of time and effort

First topic message reminder :

Sonny Boy Williams,Boxer,Rugby League,Rugby Union,highly talented player or very over rated take your pick.
Walked out on his League Contract to join Toulon,broke that in an effort to play for All Blacks in the RWC.
A season with Crusaders,with varying success,a few games for All Blacks mostly off the bench,has failed
to break up established Nonu /.Smith partnership and will if selected for RWC squad start from Bench.
Supposedly signed a further one year contract with Nzrfu,and the Blues post RWC,tonight it seems the
agreement is only verbal .That his agent is in talk with the Waratahs for next season,is there any point
in bothering to sign or try to sign him up .Seems he is prepared to follow the money and not commit to
NZ Rugby.From there point of view it is a waste of time IF he is not prepared to commit long term NZ
is I contend better of without him.

Aucklandlaurie,
Well you are closer to it than I am. I can only go by what I see on TV and in the general media. And that personna appears smug and off-putting. It would be better if he is OK as you said. So I certainly hope you are right, which I am sure you are

The conversion to Islam was very popular amongst American athletes for a while. Usually the bllack athletes which I always thought as a bit strange since the Arabs were the first traders of balcks from Africa before the Euopeans got involved.

But what to do with Mr. Nasser?

Dr Grey.
Fair enough, At times Khoder Nasser reminds me of Don King...

Yeah, two peas in a rotton pod.

I dont think he's good enough for the world cup squad and think he is asking too much of the NZRFU. I would just tell him no.

He does seem to be more obsessed with offloading than achieving a line break. The off load is useless if everyone in the defensive line knows he's never going to take the line on.

I don't think he is taht bad.

Maybe he can teach Jean de Villiers how to offload. Jean de Villiers can teach him how to take the line on.

Sonny Bill Williams and England's Nick Bananhan are the poor man's version of Jonah Lomu.

It was an improved performance against Tonga. He took on the line, made some great defensive hits and aside from some inaccuracy at the breakdown, looked the part.

I still can't see him forcing his way in ahead of Smith or Nonu. Perhaps Kahui on one wing, and SBW covering the backline along with Jane.

Improved??? He was fecking brilliant and set up 3 or 4 tries. When he's in that form hes unplayable.

The only problem for him is that Nonu was even better!

Fecking brilliant is an improvement over last time though no?

Hard to tell against erratic Tongan defence. A lot of the time they're so concerned about putting in the "big hit" that they don't make the tackle at all. A lot of the time in the first half the ABs were running at huge dog legs in the line.

He is one of the best centres in the world after only playing a few seasons of rugby union. He has broken into the top ranked team in the world and does things that no other player can do and is still improving!

He's still no Conrad Smith though.

sirtidychris wrote:He is one of the best centres in the world after only playing a few seasons of rugby union. He has broken into the top ranked team in the world and does things that no other player can do and is still improving!

But didn't Brian O'Driscoll also do things which no other player could do back in 2000.

offer him a bonus for each linebreak he makes in a game before he offloads.

TheGreyGhost wrote: A lot of the time they're so concerned about putting in the "big hit" that they don't make the tackle at all. A lot of the time in the first half the ABs were running at huge dog legs in the line.

Oh there you go with he cliches about Pacific Island play again, lazy journalism.....

You don't deal with irony well, do you?

TheGreyGhost wrote:You don't deal with irony well, do you?

To be honest mate with you its impossible to tell when youre being serious, delusional, or silly. Can you wink or something?

gboycottnut wrote:

sirtidychris wrote:He is one of the best centres in the world after only playing a few seasons of rugby union. He has broken into the top ranked team in the world and does things that no other player can do and is still improving!

But didn't Brian O'Driscoll also do things which no other player could do back in 2000.

...and went on to be consistently one of the world's best centres for 10 years.

what's your point?

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

TheGreyGhost wrote:You don't deal with irony well, do you?

To be honest mate with you its impossible to tell when youre being serious, delusional, or silly. Can you wink or something?

Wink

tomathy wrote:

gboycottnut wrote:

sirtidychris wrote:He is one of the best centres in the world after only playing a few seasons of rugby union. He has broken into the top ranked team in the world and does things that no other player can do and is still improving!

But didn't Brian O'Driscoll also do things which no other player could do back in 2000.

...and went on to be consistently one of the world's best centres for 10 years.

what's your point?

My point is that Sonny Bill Williams is nothing special, as unlike the other great centres who have played rugby down the years such as Danie Gerber, Jeremy Guscott and Brian O'Driscoll, these great centres have a special type of ability - almost a sixth sense in being able to score tries.

Jeremy Guscott

I almost took you seriously then for a minute.

Guscott.

Good one

Hilarious wasn't it GG?

Good to see you not overusing the emoticoms too.

gboycottnut wrote:
My point is that Sonny Bill Williams is nothing special, as unlike the other great centres who have played rugby down the years such as Danie Gerber, Jeremy Guscott and Brian O'Driscoll, these great centres have a special type of ability - almost a sixth sense in being able to score tries.

Gusgott??!! You forgot about Will Carling and Phil de Glanville!

Dont forget Rob Ackerman, the biggest butt of any welsh centre in history, and the turning circle of an oil tanker!

Linebreaker wrote: Hilarious wasn't it GG?

Good to see you not overusing the emoticoms too.

Where Guscott is concerned , there can never be too many emoticons

TheGreyGhost wrote:Jeremy Guscott

I almost took you seriously then for a minute.

Guscott.

Good one

What about those other great England centres Clive Woodward and Will Greenwood?

tbh sonny bill does offer an other option i mean i know tonga isint the best of sides but his ability to get over the gain line and his offloads are pretty special- however lets remember that while his offloads take skill the players around him are pretty skillful to make sure they are in the right position for the offload

gboycottnut wrote:

tomathy wrote:

gboycottnut wrote:

sirtidychris wrote:He is one of the best centres in the world after only playing a few seasons of rugby union. He has broken into the top ranked team in the world and does things that no other player can do and is still improving!

But didn't Brian O'Driscoll also do things which no other player could do back in 2000.

...and went on to be consistently one of the world's best centres for 10 years.

what's your point?

My point is that Sonny Bill Williams is nothing special, as unlike the other great centres who have played rugby down the years such as Danie Gerber, Jeremy Guscott and Brian O'Driscoll, these great centres have a special type of ability - almost a sixth sense in being able to score tries.

Sonny Bill is not a great of the game...to achieve that status, he needs to stay in new zealand for the next 4 years playing another world cup at the age of 30 therefore proving all the money bill haters wrong.... the way he is improving i reckon some time over the next 4 years he could be the best centre in the world. I would say he is the best offloader in the game of rugby but agree he can't read a game like some of the great centres...simply because that takes time so you just know rather than having to think too much.

I hope he chooses southern hemisphere rugby union over all the other stuff....but only time will tell.

bit of a clown but a talented player learning his trade in union. i think he will win them a game or two as the tournament progresses off the bench.

Actually I thought Guscott would have been a great player if he had been in an All Black setup. Silky running and passing.
His problem was mainly that he didn't get many opportunities.
SBW is a fine player. But he is not able to do anything that great centres have done in the past. Off load in the tackle - old hat. The difference is that he is bigger and more cut than others.
He hasn't had a big impact in a game against a top country (apologies to Scotland but it was a walkover that day). And he will not become a real rugby star if he returns to France since top level rugby is internationals (unlike say soccer). If he hangs around he may overtake an aging nonu or smith one day but then there's nothing wrong with Fruean that another year or two can't fix

There's a few rumours going round this town that Sonny Bill might be coming home for 2012.

One year deal with the Chiefs,with boxing leave.