Big Willie’s gone soft

 

Roar Pro

By Gabriel Knowles, 3 Apr 2009 Gabriel Knowles is a Roar Pro

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 NRL, Rugby League, Sydney Roosters, Willie Mason

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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.