I'm looking forward to seeing Sonny Bill Williams' reintegration to the All Blacks tomorrow. I'm a huge fan and think his rugby potential is almost limitless.
SBW gives them a variation without having to tweak the overall game plan too much.
He's got a unique skillset with his offloading. The only other player in the world with similar passing game is Kieran Read.
What it means for players around him is they continually need to support by running past the point of contact. He is alway looking to get the ball away in contact. If you stop or hesitate when he gets tackled you won't get the support lines right. You almost have to assume he'll get his arms forward of the tackle and free to offload.
Because he's so tall and strong, you rarely see him go backwards in tackles.
SBW creates wide space because two defenders need to get narrow to take him. You can't let him 'gap'. You're almost putting a two-man wall up in front of him.
I'm also thrilled he is playing with Cruden. Because he's running, if you will, league lines, he can run off Cruden's shoulder.
The first-five seems more happy going to the line when SBW is beside him because he can also offload. During their successful Chiefs' campaign there must have been a dozen times SBW ran off Cruden successfully. They have a great synergy.
Cruden has one of the best offloading games I've seen but it is not being utilised at the moment. Williams will give him the confidence to get that parting his game going again.
Williams has a good passing game, probably not the standard of Nonu's long-passing game off either hand, but he makes up for it in other areas.
The one drawback, and I'm sure he's been told this, is you can't, at No 12, see every phase as an offloading opportunity. There're times you just need him to hit the advantage line and set up nice quick ball so the All Blacks can run through their patterns and get some rhythm in their game.
Because he's so good, there are times he should be stepping and fending to try to beat players without an offload.
It's something he hasn't done enough yet, because the offload is his default setting.
When he gets that balance, he'll be unstoppable.
