Sonny Bill stays with All Blacks after 3-year deal
Print Edition
ALL Blacks center Sonny Bill Williams has spurned lucrative moves to France as well as a return to Australian rugby league in favor of signing a new deal to stay in New Zealand until after the 2019 World Cup.
The former New Zealand rugby league international and heavyweight boxing champion, who is hoping to win sevens gold at the Olympics in August, helped the All Blacks to successive World Cup triumphs in 2011 and 2015.
The 30-year-old said a call from coach Steve Hansen after last year’s World Cup final had convinced him to stay in the 15-man game in New Zealand.
“I grew up as a league boy, I’m not going to lie,” he told a news conference in Auckland yesterday. “But now this is where my path is and it’s an amazing feeling to be part of such a high quality team.
“I must admit when I first came back I didn’t really know too much about what it means to be an All Black. Now I do. I consider myself a rugby player and I just love the environment.”
Williams said family reasons were behind his decision to leave the Waikato Chiefs and play Super Rugby for the Auckland Blues, where he will be reunited with Tana Umaga, the coach who lured him from rugby league to Toulon in 2008.
Toulon was among the clubs hoping to lure Williams back to France and he was also a long-standing target of Australia’s Sydney Roosters, who he helped to the National Rugby League title in 2013.
Williams has earned 33 test caps since his debut in 2010 but has had to play second fiddle at inside center to Ma’a Nonu for much of that time, being preferred as an impact player off the bench.
With Nonu now in France and no longer available, Hansen said the recommitment of Williams would allow New Zealand to build another world class center combination. “I believe he’ll only get better and better. He could end up being one of the greats of our game.”
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