- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
The biggest game of the rugby league calendar is now upon us and geez, wouldn’t you know it, all the limelight has once again been hogged by one individual.
Blake Ferguson.
I mean, Sonny Bill Williams.
By winning the RLIF’s International Player of the Year award yesterday, SBW managed to get his mug on the telly once more, while giving his stock in the rugby league annals another massive boost.
And, as a rugby league fan who saw the man sneak away from his club at their lowest ebb to play a different sport on the other side of the world… I am totally fine with that.
Now don’t get me wrong, not everything about the RLIF awards was perfect. The toilet humourific #Ipoty hashtag for starters seemed a tad awkward, even before SBW walked onto the podium.
But Sonny receiving the top gong, despite not getting a look in at the Dally M Awards and classifying his rugby league lifespan as being for a limited time only?
Fantastic.
While there have been a lot of positives to come out of the World Cup – good crowds, great matches, the Scottish team’s shorts – the re-modelling of Williams as footballer rather than front page fashionista has to be one of the tournament’s biggest accomplishments.
It’s no secret that for many watching Williams win a premiership in his comeback season to the NRL was sullied to a degree by the sycophantic saturation dedicated to him by a few media outlets.
And hey, a superstar going around and winning a premiership for a club who was in the process of driving dumptrucks full of cash up to players’ houses as part of their rebuilding phase isn’t exactly ‘the Lion King’ in the feel good story stakes.
But, if the sight of a sweater-clad Sonny rocking a store-bought haircut and shedding a tear to his teammates’ impromptu haka after being crowned rugby league’s best doesn’t endear you to the bloke, then you’re suffering from a heart of stone or are just Tohu Harris.
Unlike his club commitments, turning out for the Kiwis at the World Cup never fitted into the SBW ‘brand.’
Despite a respectable run since the ’08 World Cup, they were still very much second class citizens in comparison to the all-conquering Kangaroos and Williams’ former national icon side All Blacks.
The mid-year Test came and went, with Sonny sidelined with a suspect knee strain.
Then the World Cup squads appeared sans-Sonny, and the dreams of seeing Williams back in black seemed to be swamped by a sea of snapbacks, scarfs and stuttering interviews.
But then suddenly, just like when he single handedly turned the NRL grand final in favour of his side, something clicked.
Sonny was in. In for another year at Easts and, more importantly, in with Stephen Kearney’s battlers at the Cup.
The rest, as Dave Middleton says, is history, as Williams has gone on to make every post a winner, and at the same time become the rugby league man everyone knew he could be before he took the easy way out in ’08.
Comebacks are not a rarity for rugby league, as young men crawl their way back from injury, personal issues and stupidity.
But when SBW trundles on to Old Trafford on the weekend, his deserves to be ranked among the game’s greatest, and as rugby league fans we should not be too proud to befall the fatted calf for him.
For while his stay may be all too brief, the prodigal son has now fully returned… and even bought a little something extra with him.
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.