KEY POINTS:
SYDNEY - Rugby code-switcher Sonny Bill Williams has rubbished claims he is homesick in France but admits he regrets the way he departed Australia.
The former Kiwis league star was reported yesterday to be homesick at his French rugby club Toulon, unhappy at his treatment by big-spending club
president Mourad Boudjellal and contemplating a move home to Australia.
Williams is currently sidelined with a leg fracture and unlikely to play again for another three weeks.
"I'm loving it over here. I don't have any problems with the club and I don't have any problems with the president," he told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.
"The people who have been saying that are just trying to drive a wedge between me and (coach) Tana (Umaga) and me and the club.
"It's obviously disappointing being injured but it's given me a chance to really watch the game a bit more closely.
"When I got here I was pretty much thrown into the deep end. One of the things I'm enjoying is not being in a fishbowl existence like in Sydney and being able to relax."
Williams said he was used to being away from home, having left Auckland at the age of 16 to join the Canterbury Bulldogs in Sydney.
His New Zealand girlfriend Jenna Shaw was reportedly set to join Williams in Toulon later this week.
Williams joined Toulon early last month after walking out on his Bulldogs club with seven matches left in the regular season, and four years left on his contract.
He was signed on a deal reportedly worth A$1.5 million ($1.85 million) per season.
The Bulldogs released Williams from his five-year National Rugby League contract after negotiating a financial settlement, believed to be about A$750,000 ($934,000).
He said there was one major regret.
"The only thing I regret is the way I left," he said.
"But I didn't have any choice. Originally, I planned to sit down with all the boys at the end of the year and tell every single one of them.
"But after getting legal advice from one of the best lawyers in Australia, Mark O'Brien, it became apparent that I was going to have to leave the way I did with no one knowing and still seven weeks to go.
"When I sit back and think about things it gets to me a lot that me having to go the way I did hurt a lot of the boys the way it did.
"If I could change anything it would be how I left because I never wanted to hurt the boys."
- NZPA
