Up The Guts Rugby

Sonny Bill Williams - Sports Mercenary?

SBW has backtracked a bit on his commitment to play Rugby in NZ next year.  This may be in light of the fact that the mid field pairing of Nonu and Conrad Smith is set in stone in the selectors minds as the first choice combination.  So Sonny has decided to delay his decision on picking a Super Rugby franchise until after the World Cup.

The problem is that all NZ franchises need to name their squads within a week of the World Cup ending which won’t give any of those teams the ability to secure his signature earlier than that.  It’s unlikely any of them will be keeping the spare 200K that SBW demands in a shoe box anywhere ‘just in case’ he wants to play for them so all signs are pointing to Sonny Bill Williams not playing his Super Rugby for a NZ team at all next year.

If he does choose to play for an Australian franchise next year he will piss a lot of New Zealanders off and it will look even worse if he tries to weasel back into All Black contention by playing ITM Cup matches next year.  It’s a bit of a shame that Sonny looks like he’s just treating his All Black jersey like a trophy and something that he has now achieved and is ready to move on to his next conquest.  But if that’s truly his attitude then I suppose we don’t want him playing in our country anyway.

Pat Lam - Happiest coach in New Zealand

If you think Pat Lam’s smile looks like the smile of a man whose just won the lottery, well, he pretty much has.  Ma’a Nonu and Piri Weepu are playing for his Blues 2012 squad next year and he still has the possibility of luring Sonny Bill Williams.  How does this Blues back line look? 9. Mathewson, 10. Weepu, 11. Ranger, 12. SBW, 13. Nonu, 14. Munro, 15. Toeava.  Not bad huh?