By Gabriel Knowles
April 3rd 2009 @ 6:37am
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Big Willie’s gone soft
Last Friday night I ducked into the toilets at the SFS after watching the Tigers finish over the top of the Roosters. The Roosters fan next to me piped up loudly when he saw an old mate a few spots down: “What are you doing in here mate? I didn’t know they let soft cocks in here!”
“Well Willie Mason can’t come in here then can he,” his mate shot back.
A less than refined review of Mason’s performance was followed by plenty of laughs before the testosterone and alcohol fueled banter trailed off towards the bar.
The thing is, it was hard to argue with their assessment of the big man’s game because he looked, well, soft.
He didn’t look anything like the Mason of old, the one who in the past managed to make it look like he was playing in the wrong age group. The one who offloaded and fended off would-be tacklers at will.
He looked like he was going through the motions at times against the Tigers. All talk and no action if you will.
The way he carted the ball up suggested he had little to no expectation that he’d break the line, which would later turn out to be right. In 59 minutes on the field, he didn’t break the line once and, to rub it in, he only managed the one solitary offload.
Hardly vintage Mason.
Throw in that he made the least tackles out of all the starting Roosters pack and it starts to stack up, even on paper.
On the upside, he did only miss one tackle all night. Unfortunately, it was on Chris Lawrence right before he wound up and raced away to score under the posts to get the Tigers back in the game.
His forlorn attempt to grab the young Tiger pretty much summed up his lack of conviction on the night.
All in all, his decision to reward himself with a few cold ones on Sunday arvo looks a touch misguided to say the least.
And while we’re on the subject, since when are “four or five beers” enough to have you reeking of booze so much that your team mates could still smell it on you the next day?
Let’s hope for the game’s sake it doesn’t turn out that he was out on the town all night
With speculation rife that the Roosters are contemplating moving Mason on at the end of the year, you’d think he’d be ripping in to the opposition with every chance he got.
So perhaps there’s something to the rumours that his agent is shopping him around to Super League and French rugby union sides as we speak?
Someone will need to show the Northern Hemisphere scouts the way to Morrie Breen Oval then.
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Suchy said | April 3rd 2009 @ 9:14am | Report comment
Mason is a cat. Last Friday he hardly ever took the ball up on the early tackles, prefering to wait and run at the smaller guys on the fourth or fifth tackle. Just wait till he starts bleating about how he deserves his Origin jersey. The only thing he should do with that Origin jersey is give it back to Hindmarsh or a new bloke like Mateo or Heignington
oikee said | April 3rd 2009 @ 10:53am | Report comment
I think your being too hard on big willie, send him to the broncos to toughen him up a bit, we would have the useless chook.
Then he will try boxing and maybe setup a fight with SBW. 
If he goes to Union then we know he has gone soft.
Good to see Wendal Sailor back having to play Footy to earn his keep.
el_capitan said | April 3rd 2009 @ 10:58am | Report comment
Oikee,
I doubt even the French would want Willie.
cosmos forever said | April 3rd 2009 @ 1:11pm | Report comment
Mason played just the way he did when the Roosters were in town last season and just the way he plays EVERY game except Origin.
He talks big and targets small blokes on the fringe in 10 minute bursts when he knows they are tired.
He is so unbelievably destructive when he puts in I can’t even imagine how disappointing Fitler must find his general form.
Hoy said | April 3rd 2009 @ 3:23pm | Report comment
There is no doubt that “Big Willie” should be a more destructive player all the time. The only game I have seen him totally dominate was that massive game in Origin when he was unstoppable.
Unfortunately, it appears he has a little bit of the same disease Carl Webb has, in that they talk up the game a lot more than they deliver.
The pity is that players like Nate Myles hang around this lout and get bad habits. It would have been better for some of the hanger onners to look for a game elsewhere and learn some good habits.
True Tah said | April 3rd 2009 @ 3:30pm | Report comment
He does strike me as a bloke who likes the sound of his own voice and seeing his name in the paper.
I remember him punching out Stuart Fielden in a test match, but that was about the only thing of note he did in that game, apart from giving away a penalty for trying to take Andy Long’s head off.
Hoy said | April 3rd 2009 @ 3:47pm | Report comment
That was a sweet punch. Got him flush.
Frank said | April 3rd 2009 @ 7:08pm | Report comment
Willie simply doesn’t have the game for Union. I remember him having a whale of a game for the Dogs V Rossters in the GF many moons ago. He was unstoppable. Yet listening to Warren Ryan last year on the radio, he was postulating that the way to stop Willie was to rush and attack him in the tackle. It both cut his momentum short and limited the time for his options in the tackle. Maybe by belting him, he has been found out. As True Tah and Hoy noted, it really was a sweet punch that decked Fielden. Though if my memory serves me correctly, the English captain got into Willy with a flurry of punches that kept them both busy for some time. Maybe that is the metaphor for Willie’s game – rush him and dazzle him and his ability to adapt is found wanting.
LeftArmSpinner said | April 3rd 2009 @ 7:57pm | Report comment
and, without Soft willie or “Low” Myles, they go out and belt the Eels, against the odds.
I say it again, No dickheads, hard or soft………..
znotty said | April 4th 2009 @ 1:20am | Report comment
its not Willys fault if he`s over rated thats the person doing all the ratings but granted he could shut his gob & make a few metres,its like Anasta i never heard Braith call himself the next Fittler but all the scribes who rated him so now nark on him because hes not but he`s trying his guts out just the same.
makes no diff Saints are gonna win it all anyhow!!!!
Campbell Watts said | April 22nd 2009 @ 5:08pm | Report comment
I still laugh when I think of Kidwell sitting him on his arse in that trans-tasman test a few years back. Willie curled in a fetal ball of pain with Kidwell standing over him giving him a gobfull. That one play was enough to lift the Kiwis to victory that day.