|
NZPA - He’s the most talked- about rugby player in Australasia. In his first in-depth interview with a New Zealand paper since signing a deal with the NZRU, Sonny Bill Williams talks to Aaron Lawton about his fear and fearlessness.
The temperature is three degrees. The sky is grey and the rain shows no sign of abating.
Christchurch’s Rugby Park on a cold, wintery Friday morning is a far cry from Toulon in the south of France.
But for Sonny Bill Williams this is now home, at least until the end of next year.
On the surface, the bloke – make that brand – known as SBW is as calm as can be. He’s all blue steel as he moves from one journalist to another – radio, television and print – and answers the same questions with scarcely a flicker of irritation on his face or detectable in his voice.
But you get the feeling that beneath the tough-guy exterior there’s a cage of butterflies flitting about his stomach.
In his career, Williams has faced adversity and triumphed. He won a premiership with the Bulldogs in 2004 and was sensational in his last season for Toulon after an injury-riddled first year.
But this – this public declaration of a desire to pull on the All Blacks jersey while turning down a multi-million dollar offer to stay in France – is something different.
The pressure is on and there is no place to hide.
“There probably hasn’t ever been as much pressure on me as there is now,” Williams says, hood pulled over his head somewhat protectively as the Christchurch cold sets in.
“Living and playing in France, I was probably able to sneak under the radar a fair bit. But here, well, every little thing I do is going to be appreciated or scrutinised.
“I know I’m going to start off a bit rusty but hopefully I can build up and have a bit of a snowball effect going on.
“The pressure thing is fine, though. It comes with the territory.”
Chances are, if you had told Williams even a year ago that in July 2010 he’d be sitting in a dinky stand in Christchurch and talking about his quest to become an All Black, he’d have laughed at you.
Why? Well, for starters, it was only in the latter stages of the recently completed French season that the bloke realised he actually had what it takes to excel in the 15-a-side code.
He’s an exceptional athlete, for sure, and has a body women love and men wish they had.
But in France during his first year life was tough and a mis-diagnosis on his problematic leg – later identified as Compartment syndrome, a complaint that results in compression of nerves, blood vessels and muscle inside a closed space within the body – had the man-mountain knocking back painkillers like lollies.
And that was just to train.
“Man, you have your doubts and I won’t lie – it was very tough over there for a while,” Williams says.
“Probably the biggest disappointment for me was when I came back for the second season [in September of 2009] and wasn’t able to train. I started wondering if my leg would ever get back to where it should be.
“Just after I got back to France last year, they diagnosed me with Compartment syndrome. So I missed another 18 games or something.
“I wasn’t disillusioned with it all as such but I was certainly thinking, `What’s going on?’
“But the more I thought about it the more I thought I needed to give myself every chance possible. I thought I’d give myself 20 games and then assess where I was after that.
“And, thankfully, things went well.”
Get an
y professional athlete to list their No1 asset and they’ll tell you it’s their body.
It’s their meal ticket, after all. So when Williams found he couldn’t even train without taking painkillers in France, so bad was his leg, thoughts about quitting started to cloud his mind.
“You do have thoughts about whether you will make it as a rugby player, whether you will cut it,” he says.
“But my perserverance got me though. I played only 10 or 12 games in my first season. I wasn’t even able to train every day.
“That was tough. At stages during my first year I was taking painkillers just to get on the training paddock.
“I guess it was unfortunate they [Toulon] didn’t diagnose it right straight away.
“But, thankfully, bro, I got myself right in the end. I hung in there and I strung together those games I wanted.
“If I hadn’t done that I might not have had the confidence to be able to say, `Yeah, I can play this game’.”
While Williams’ troubles on the training paddock in France might not be so well known, his infamous walkout on the Bulldogs midway through the 2008 NRL season is.
Behind closed doors, the relationship between the second-rower and the Sydney club hit rock bottom and he split, jumping on board a plane one Saturday afternoon bound for France and a lucrative contract with Toulon.
Say what you want about what went down, but as far as Williams is concerned he was simply raising his giant hand in the air, extending the middle finger and letting it be known that he was no walkover.
“I’m a huge believer in standing up for what you believe in,” he says.
“And I guess that’s why I get on so well with Choc [Anthony Mundine] or a bloke like Tana [Umaga]. These guys are guys who stand up for what they believe in.
“In some people’s eyes what they believe in might be wrong or whatever – but these guys don’t worry about that. They do what they have to do.
“Obviously, at the time I was feeling pretty strongly about certain things and those things drove me to do what I did. It hurt a lot of people but, at the same time, I couldn’t sit back in 10 or 20 years and hate myself for doing nothing when I felt so strongly about things.
“We can sit here and talk about all these negatives and dwell on the past. But that’s not the sort of person I’m about. I don’t like to dwell on the negatives.
“Look, I’m not going to sit here and say there were no negatives in what happened with the Bulldogs because there were.
“But at the end of the day, I did what I did. I’ve moved on and I’m very happy with where I am at right now.”
The reaction in Australia to Williams’ defection to French rugby union was brutal.
He was labelled a traitor and one publication even called him Australia’s most hated man ahead of Bali bomber Amrozi.
There’s no doubt that from his sheltered, sunny paradise on the other side of the world, Williams heard what was said. And it hurt.
“You are not human if you don’t feel some of it,” he says. “But at the end of the day, I’m a very passionate and strong-minded person. I feel like I’ve come out the other end of that stuff.
“And look [he laughs pointing as the clouds part for the first time all day] the sun’s come out and it’s shining now, bro.
“It’s all good, bro. You have to do what you have to do. You have to be a man about certain things.”
And as for that little goal of playing for the All Blacks later this year, Williams – who will return to full fitness in three weeks after keyhole knee surgery last week – is ready to, as they say, seize the day.
“I’d love to be on that end-of-year All Blacks tour,” he says. “I’ve got three months to prove myself. I just really want to put on that jersey!”
Back
|
