The demise of the Ali Williams brand

Ali Williams. Photo / Paul Estcourt

He has a juvenile sense of humour, a penchant for SpiderMan and can be inanely irritating. And yet there's something oddly compelling about him.

Ali Williams radiates mischief and mayhem, and in the too-perfect world of the All Blacks, that's a rare quality. Let's face it, Richie and Dan are personality-free zones.

But the lanky lock has struggled in his career since coming back from an Achilles injury and his celebrity brand value is also fledgling.

Where he used to be an influential figure in any rugby game, now the 30-year-old is peripheral and frustrated. Insiders say he's off the pace and it's doubtful he'll make the All Blacks World Cup team.

His arch rival is 22-year-old Sam Whitelock from the Crusaders who is tipped for the top job. Behind him are 36-year-old Brad Thorn, who's heading to Japan after the Cup, and Croatian hunk Anthony Boric, 27.

Ali will be hoping the ABs will take a fourth lock in the squad. "If they do," said one rugby commentator, "they might go for experience, of which he has bucket loads. But so does Chris Jack."

Williams will be relying on his bromance with coach Graham "Ted" Henry to see him right. But how much can a man-crush be relied upon? Henry is famously loyal to the players he loves - Ali is one of them - but he's there to win the Cup and if Williams isn't up to it, he shouldn't be in.

"Ali is done as a top-drawer player," a rugby reporter told Spy. "Any future role in the All Blacks will be as a bag-carrying squad man, helping out at training sessions by pretending to be the opposition."

If the ABs don't want him, Williams' celebrity stock value will depreciate too. Let's face it, rugby is his trump card.

There have been forays into business with a chain of bargain furniture stores and a bottled water brand with Carter and McCaw. But SuperFurn closed in 2009 due to poor sales and Williams has had to sink his own cash into the charity aligned with Water For Everyone.

"We've lost money," Ali told the Herald on Sunday earlier this month.

He is planning his upcoming wedding to on-off girlfriend Casey Green, a pole dancing teacher and one-time telly face. She plays the minor celebrity plus-one. The pair are trying to negotiate - through an agent - a high-paying contract with a woman's magazine for their wedding story.

But they know all too well the dollar value will drastically subside if the silver fern doesn't come with the offering.

Williams is launching his latest literary masterpiece - his third - in July, aptly titled Ali's Utterly Unreliable Guide to the World Cup. It is ghost-written by James Griffin of Outrageous Fortune fame. Ali's Book of Tall Tales and Buy Soup for Ali apparently sold well, though rebranding himself as an erudite author is hardly on the cards.

Chasing the big bucks scene of French rugby is possible, but it is unlikely he will maintain any form of the celebrity pulling power he has enjoyed here over the years.

While Williams is a regular in these very social pages, snapped at launch parties and front row at fashion parades, it is doubtful French society rag Paris Match will come knocking for a cover story.

-Herald On Sunday / View