Roosters roll out welcome mat for SBW
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Sydney Roosters players are relishing the prospect of playing alongside New Zealand code-hopper Sonny Bill Williams next year.
There had been speculation Williams’s rumoured deal to return to the NRL from rugby union has some Tricolours offside.
But that’s news to outstanding young back-rower Boyd Cordner and New Zealand international centre three-quarter Shaun Kenny-Dowall.
“If he comes here, I think it would be great … as a back-rower I could learn so much from him and I’d love him to be part of the club,” said 20-year-old Cordner.
“I grew up watching him and he was a massive role model to everyone, especially me and if he comes here I’ll have the chance to learn from him and get some advice and I’m sure he’ll have plenty.”
Williams celebrated a Super Rugby title with the Chiefs on Saturday night and will play for New Zealand in two games of the Rugby Championship.
He will then head to Japanese rugby for a lucrative 12-game stint before he is expected to join the Roosters on a one-year deal, ending his five-season exile from league after his controversial exit from Canterbury midway through 2008.
The deal is reportedly worth $850,000 a year and is also believed to allow Williams to continue his boxing career.
It is also expected he will miss the bulk of the Roosters’ pre-season and arrive at the club a month before the 2013 season kicks off.
“It’s all speculation at the moment but if he does come that would be great,” Kenny-Dowall said.
“He’s one of the best players in the world, so you couldn’t help but get excited by the thought of playing with somebody like that.
“Anywhere he goes, he’s going to be a massive attribute and it would be no different here. I’d be really excited to play outside a player of his calibre.”
Meanwhile the Roosters are hopeful second-rower Aidan Guerra will play against Parramatta on Saturday.
Guerra suffered an ankle injury in Friday night’s win over St George Illawarra and is awaiting the results of scans.
© AAP 2013The Crowd Says (7) | Page 1 of Comments
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August 7th 2012 @ 8:23am
Maddog said | August 7th 2012 @ 8:23am | Report comment
SBW may be a very dynamic player but to some in NSW he is more hated than King Wally. I am not a Dogs supporter but I think what he did to the Dogs was just a DOG act. SBW is like Anthony Mundine….people will go just to see him get knocked out.
August 7th 2012 @ 9:23am
Maroon Blood said | August 7th 2012 @ 9:23am | Report comment
Not just what he did to the Dogs but the NRL as a whole. Letting him back in for a dash-for-cash one year deal is a disgrace IMO and sends out the message to the rest of the NRL that a contract is worth nothing, you can just walk out on it anytime you like but be welcomed back with open arms as long as you can put bums on seats and be a cash cow to the organisation.
The NRL should grow some kahunas and refuse to approve any contract with SBW to send the RIGHT message out.
The fact he has the same management team as Mundine says it all.
August 7th 2012 @ 8:41am
Adam said | August 7th 2012 @ 8:41am | Report comment
Agree Maddog he will certainly bring people through the gates but only because people will want to see him get smashed and fail. RL lives of hype and SBW will bring plenty of hype with him.
After all he was voted the most hated man in Australia. League fans have not forgotten.
August 7th 2012 @ 9:33pm
Damien said | August 7th 2012 @ 9:33pm | Report comment
While the headline as Most Hated Man in Oz sounds good its really nothing serious.
That poll was done by Zoo magazine which is a Lads magazine with a target market of 18 – 34 year old men. Not really a true cross section of the Oz public.
The poll was so serious that the year before Zoo rated Daniel Johns of Silverchair as the most hated man in Oz.
Other highlights from the 2008 poll were (a cut and paste from the actual article aboout the SBW poll)
“SA attorney-general Michael Atkinson came in at six for blocking R-rated video games, followed by the Pope for “shutting down our streets and filling them with a bunch of weirdos” during World Youth Day in Sydney.
“Generally we don’t like him (the Pope) he’s old and looks a bit strange, like he should be in Star Wars,” editor Paul Merrill said.
Based on men’s views, the list included everybody from an incest father and daughter couple, bank chief executives and “the girl from the AAMI ads”.
Surprise inclusions were pop star Madonna (44), golfer Greg Norman (13) and Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker (32).”
You may want to see him get smashed and fail Adam but thats not really the sentiments echoed by other league fans..
August 7th 2012 @ 10:37am
Albo said | August 7th 2012 @ 10:37am | Report comment
Any wonder the Roosters are fast becoming perennial cellar dwellers with such risk laden decisions like this.
Accommodating SBW and allowing him to do what ever he wants whilst paying him a small fortune to boot, and with the track record he already has ? Just Ridiculous !
And where will they play him ? He’s a rah rah centre now isn’t he ?
Best ask him. He might prefer to play half back next year to help with his boxing conditioning ?
August 7th 2012 @ 5:48pm
chris said | August 7th 2012 @ 5:48pm | Report comment
He is just coming back so he can get a SOO title on his sporting CV.
August 7th 2012 @ 9:43pm
Arthur Fonzarelli said | August 7th 2012 @ 9:43pm | Report comment
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
To anyone out there who is employed – if another employer offered you triple your current salary, and you were unhappy in your current workplace, would you be tempted to break a contract. I sure would !!!
Without going back in time to his Dogs departure, causing mass hysteria and fears that rugby league was dead and buried, and that French billionaires were about to start paying mega-bucks to Toyota Cup players decimating rugby league as a game, surely its all now over and done with ?
I look forward to the return of SBW, I am just sad that he is not playing for my team.