Filed under: Celebrities, Politicians, Religion, Sport | Tags: David Koch, Sonny Bill Williams, Zoo Weekly
“Sonny Bill is someone who did something no Australian should do, he ditched his teammates and walked out. We’re calling him Money Bill Williams for scarpering off to another continent just for the cash.”
Zoo editor Paul Merrill comments on the lad mag’s annual People We Hate list. Labor MP and Iguanagate veteran Belinda Neal was third behind the Bali bomber, with the Pope featuring in seventh for “shutting down our streets and filling them with a bunch of weirdos” during World Youth Day in Sydney.
“Generally we don’t like him (the Pope) he’s old and looks a bit strange, like he should be in Star Wars,” Merrill said.
TV personality David Koch merited inclusion “because he’s a bit of an old fart”. The full list:
1. Sonny Bill Williams – Bulldogs deserter
2. Amrozi – Bali bomber dubbed the smiling assassin
3. Belinda Neal – Tantie-throwing, night-clubbing federal Labor MP
4. Wayne Carey – Misbehaving former AFL player
5. Nick D’Arcy – Dumped from Olympic swim team over assault claim
6. SA Attorney – General Michael Atkinson7. Pope Benedict
8. Indy 500 General Manager, Greg Hooten – banned booze and boobs.
9&10. John Earnest and Anne Deaves – father and daughter who became dad and mum.
11. Big Brother 2008 winner Terri
12. Corey Worthington – Melbourne party boy
13. Greg Norman – golfer
14. Mercedes Corby – convicted drug smuggler’s sister
15. Schapelle Corby – convicted drug smuggler
16. Peter MacDonald – James Hardie boss who avoided paying compensation
17. David Miscavige – Scientology boss
18. Dennis Ferguson – accused pedophile seeking compensation
19. Kyle Sandilands – radio host
20. David Koch – Sunrise presenter
21. The girl from the AAMI ads
22. Marcus Trescothick – English cricketer
23. Rove McManus – comedian
24. George W Bush – US president
25. Toadie from Neighbours
26. Bank CEOs
27. Japanese Whalers
28. Radovan Karadzic – accused genocidal Serb leader
29. Sheik Yamani – price-rising Saudi oil minister
30. Martin Lawrence – actor
31. John Darwin – Briton who faked own death
32. Sarah Jessica Parker – actor
33. Jamie Oliver – TV chef
34. Todd McKenny – Radio and TV host
35. & 36. Rick Dyer and Matthew Whitton – gave false hope to Bigfoot believers
37. Judge who jailed lesbians in Dubai
38. Gordon Ramsay – foul-mouthed chef
39. Britney Spears
40. Patrick Swayze – gets cancer, continues to smoke
41. Tamsyn Lewis – Olympic athlete
42. Amy Winehouse – drug, booze and self-pity hound
43. Pamela Anderson – no-show for Zoo Weekly
44. Madonna – singer
45. Joanna Griggs – voice of the Olympics
46. Heath Franklin – comedic performer and writer
47. Peter Hore – serial pest
48. Heather Mills – Paul McCartney’s former wife
49. Tim Johnson – the Firepower man
50. Milton Orkopolous – former NSW pollie and convicted sex offender.
“After listening to Sony Bill Williams’s stuttering attempt to justify the unjustifiable, it seems to me that he is an example of a person whose IQ is inversely proprotional to the number of times he has visited the tattoo parlour. Dare I also suggest that any man called “Sonny” is likely to have more than the usual trouble trying to grow up.”
Des Hoad, Palmyra, WA, letter to The Australian.
“This is now becoming a bitter Hollywood divorce and the longer it takes, the more childish the NRL and the Australian media will look. The NRL needs to realise that Sonny Bill Williams is simply not coming back.”
Dave Terangi, Brisbane, letter to the Daily Telegraph.
“Now that a certain former Bulldog is officially a French rugby union player will he now be known as a bullfrog?”
Garth Clarke, letter to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Filed under: Sport | Tags: Bulldogs, Sonny Bill Williams, Tigers, Todd Greenberg
“I haven’t wished him a happy birthday.”
Bulldogs chief executive Todd Greenberg on Sonny Bill Williams. The Bulldogs lost 56-4 to the Wests Tigers on the same day, August 4.
Filed under: Sport | Tags: Bernard Herni-Levy, David Campese, Sonny Bill Williams
SBW mania continues unabated. The jokes have started:
“Q: What’s the difference between SBW and Arnold Schwarzenegger.?
A: Arnold Schwarzenegger will be back.”
The fans are still hurting:
“Sonny Bill Williams is greedy, disloyal, ungrateful, immature and misguided.
He was not deserving of wearing the same coloured Guernsey of men such as Mazem El Masri, Andrew Ryan and Luke Patten.”
John Hallam, Kurri Kurri.
“To Sonny Bill I say “au revoir’.
He obviously shows no passion, loyalty and respect for his team mates, fans and the game of rugby league. At least his leaving the game will free up a position for a player who truly loves the game, and would be thrilled to given the opportunity to play at first-grade level.
The French can have him.”
K. Pace, Fairfield.
“Like a spoiled baby.”
David Campese in the Daily Telegraph describes SBW’s behaviour. Meanwhile, Sam de Brito thinks the media are a bunch of hypocrites:
“The Sydney sporting media’s frothing outrage over Bulldogs superstar Sonny Bill Williams decision to not honour his contract because he was offered triple the amount by French rugby is dazzling in its hypocrisy.
Can you imagine if any league pundit was offered more than three times their wage to defect to the opposition? They wouldn’t even logg off their computer. Their homemade lasagna would still be in the office microwave while their empty chair spun at their desk.”
Mike Carlton, on the other hand, thinks we’re all making far too many assumptions:
“People assume that Sonny Bill is a bit thick because he is covered in tats and apparently monosyllabic in English, with a silly Christian name to boot. But perhaps there are hidden depths. Who’s to say that, even now he is not reclining at ease on some late night chat show on Canal Plus, tossing witty aphorisms back and forth with Bernard Henri-Levy? You don’t get that sort of fun at a Bulldogs nightclub incident.”
Filed under: Politicians | Tags: Mark Gasnier, Professor David Rowe, rugby league, Sonny Bill Williams
“In its centenary year rugby league has been revealed as fairly small beer in global terms, and faces the prospect of a diminished place in the hierarchy of Australian sport. The first step in ensuring its future is to dispense with its well-developed propensity for self-delusion.”
Professor David Rowe offers a dispassionate assessment of rugby league in the wake of the defection of Sonny Bill Williams and Mark Gasnier to French rugby union.
As Aaron Timms rightly points out, the exodus of Sonny Bill Williams from NRL will have unimaginable ramifications:
“From there, it will only be a matter of time before we see mass protests over food, soaring unemployment, stagflation, war with North Korea, conflict over the Potomac, accelerated melting of the polar ice caps and the implosion of the United Nations.
With a couple of minor exceptions, these are the same conditions in which Nazism was born. Sonny Bill Williams: the Franz von Papen of 2008? The suggestion is not without merit.”
News that star Bulldogs player Sonny Bill Williams has fled NRL, a victim of the fatal temptation of French rugby union Euros, has sent the nation in a state of mourning. That is the only conclusion one can reach based on the reaction of fans and fellow players. The papers showed a fan standing with a banner reading $BW= JUDAS AU REVOIR. An anonymous Bulldogs player summed up the feelings of many when he said:
“He’s lost the respect of not only every Bulldogs player but everyone in the country.”
Fans are deeply hurt and angry:
“Sonny Bill has been a winner, now he has to learn to lose without spitting the dummy and running away to join a circus.” Tom Daly.
Bryan Doyle is bereft:
“Say it isn’t so, Sonny. Say it isn’t so and come back.”
Others see signs of moral failure of an entire generation:
“Sonny Boy Williams is the new poster boy for Generation Y. Self-absorbed, greedy, lacking in values, no concept of repercussions and when the proverbial hits the fan. running away like a coward. Corey Worthington, eat your heart out.” Adam Olsen.
Some blame the NRL and the team itself:
“Greed breeds greed and what goes around comes around. The Bulldogs are moraly entitled to money from no man.” Terry McCormack.
“Surely this young man is simply exercising the same value system that he has learnt from the very organisation that is now wringing its hands about his behaviour: do what you like, when you like, as often as you like, and you’ll most often get away with it.” Robert O’Connor.
Rugby union fans are unsympathetic:
“To all you whining rugby league fans crying about us union guys plifering your players – tough – you have been doing it to us for almost 100 years – now the shoe’s on the other foot and I, for one, love it…I hope we steal as many league players as possible so league dies and you realise it’s only popular in western Sydney.” Phil of the Gold Coast.
Finally, there are those who attempt to find humour in the situation:
“I guess that we will be hearing the phrase “chance of some lengthening Sonny periods” from now on. Terry Stormon.
“I thought Sonny Bill Williams has been a bit sheepish of late. Ewe might think he’s been pulling the wool over our eyes for a while now. Whether or not he has, he still should be baaed.” Terry Hadfield.
