Re: SBW & Player Manger have been Subpoenaed
5:00AM Tuesday July 29, 2008
By Steve Deane
It's hard not to laugh at the pompous nonsense spewing from over the Tasman about Sonny Bill Williams.
My favourite bit has been the claptrap about enforcing his contract, how he should be punished for walking away from such a hallowed document, and that the IRB, the RFL, the French Rugby Union and the KGB should unite to ensure the kid has no future anywhere.
The blatant hypocrisy of both the Bulldogs and the NRL has been staggering. For years it has been standard practice for clubs to produce contracts unfairly weighted in their favour and then wriggle out of them as soon as it suits.
Let's assume Williams had played last night and hurt his knee, not bad enough to end his career but bad enough that he wouldn't have been the same player again. Would the Bulldogs have honoured the next four years of his contract? Like hell they would. They'd be looking to get shot of him as soon as they could.
A few years ago when I covered Bradford in the Super League, they signed a player called Toa Kohe-Love to a three-year deal. In the first game for the club he ruptured his ACL ligament, ending his season.
A couple of months later the club terminated his contract, invoking a clause in a standard Super League contract that if a player was unavailable for selection for any 26 weeks out of 52 he could be cut. As Kohe-Love arrived at the club recovering from a serious shoulder injury suffered the previous season, Bradford didn't even have to wait 26 weeks to chop him.
Goodbye dream move to a big club, goodbye three years of job security. Thanks for coming, Toa.
That same year, Shontayne Hape returned to pre-season training at the club with an identical injury he had suffered playing for the Kiwis.
The injury hadn't been properly assessed during the Tri-Nations and Hape spent the entire off season hoping it would get better. The delay meant he missed most of the season.
The club wasn't happy, but it stood by one of its rising stars.
This had nothing to do with contracts. Expediency was the order of the day in both cases.
Back to the Bulldogs. When Bradford needed a quality replacement mid-season they signed centre Ben Harris - now with the Cowboys - who was granted a release by the Bulldogs.
The Dogs' official statement on the matter said Harris had been released on compassionate grounds, as his Portuguese wife wanted to live closer to her family.
That was news to Harris. His wife was Portuguese but most of her family lived in Australia. The only compassion involved in the decision was in letting him leave to make more money in England. He wanted out of his contract and he got out, presumably because the Dogs were happy to dump his salary.
Expediency.
But now it doesn't suit the Dogs to lose their biggest star and all of a sudden a contract becomes a sacred document. Please.
Players are treated like cattle - expensive cattle, but cattle nonetheless. Who can blame them for occasionally wanting to break out of the paddock?
And, coming from Canterbury, suggestions that SBW has not only dogged them but also the Kiwis are surely a joke.
This is the club that routinely denies the Kiwis access to its New Zealand players. It is the worst offender on that score by a mile, regularly scheduling minor operations for its Kiwi players during the Tri-Nations. How many games has SBW actually played for the Kiwis in recent years? And how many has he missed at the behest of the Bulldogs?
The Bulldogs' hypocrisy has been boundless but it pales into insignificance behind that of NRL chief David Gallop, with his demands that SBW be prevented from playing either code in any country - and that he will be banned from the NRL for life.
Coming from the man who had no problem re-registering Jamie Lyon in the NRL after he walked out on Parramatta a couple of years ago, this is breathtaking stuff.
Lyon was a mixed-up kid who fell out of love with the game and didn't want to be part of it any more. Ultimately he was treated with compassion.
After a couple of hugely successful years in Super League he was welcomed back to the NRL and even back into the Kangaroos.
The only difference between SBW and Lyon is that SBW wants to switch codes. Is that really such a crime in this day and age? Oh, and he is a Kiwi.
For an insight into why SBW took flight you need to look no further than a recent television appearance. Asked if he would consider switching to union, he said he would consider it. "I'm a grown-up and I'm a professional."
Sorry Sonny, there's nothing professional about walking out on a club mid-season. And only kids talk about being "a grown-up".
What he meant was an adult, which is something he isn't. He's a 22-year-old kid with an amazing talent. That talent has attracted a level of attention he clearly hasn't been equipped to deal with.
Maybe a couple of years in France will provide him with the maturity he clearly lacks.
And maybe one day he really will make the most of his talent.
Let's hope so. And let's hope he is at least given a chance.
To paint the guy as some kind of greedy villain is just plain wrong. He might owe his teammates an apology but he doesn't owe the Bulldogs or the public anything.
He's simply decided to go his own way. You can't fault the kid for that
