Chris Rattue: SBW should start over Nonu

New Zealand All Blacks star Sonny Bill Williams takes a selfie before the Pool C match between New Zealand and Tonga. Photo / Brett Phibbs.

There will be a stack of opinions about what's gonna happen, what should happen, what might happen with the World Cup this week.

So here's my contribution, to throw into the pot. Count my vote in for the All Blacks starting Sonny Bill Williams ahead of Ma'a Nonu in the quarterfinal, in the name of trying to break opponents with skill rather than crashing through them.

The old firm in the centres was looking more old than firm against Tonga. Nonu had a reasonable game, chugging and twisting ahead and getting involved defensively in his 100th test. But it was oh so predictable and fairly easy for Tonga's umbrella defence to deal with. Conrad Smith...well, it's unlikely he's played a worse test. It's difficult to remember one clever moment, a great pass for instance, between them.

Is this where top level rugby has got to, because it is also difficult to recall one super pass in that stirring, epic contest between brave 13-man Australia and injury-hit, Wales.
Maybe this plea for SBW's selection represents a yearning for creative football, rather than the battering ram variety.

If No. 8 Kieran Read was playing up to his best attacking ability, then SBW would not be so essential. But Read has either been sent into the trenches, or can't find his own way out of them. He's doing a lot of hard graft, but the magical part of his game is missing.
He has produced one wonderful offload of late, but that was against lowly Georgia. It was also in the midfield, away from the touchlines where he flourished in 2013, which is starting to feel like a long time ago in his case.

Sonny Bill Williams has the magic touch. He also showed himself to be a complete defender against Tonga, making diving low tackles. So long as he remembers to use the arms, he can be a devastating one-on-one upper body hitter. He is the man most likely to get up and smash someone, and change the flow of a game the way Jerome Kaino used to.

SBW made that late try off a magic Aaron Smith pass against Tonga look easy, but would anyone else have spotted that line? SBW also makes a killer long pass look so standard issue that you forget how hard it is to do, especially on the run. He has also kicked effectively of late.

SBW is not the player he could have been, had he concentrated more on his rugby career. But for all of Nonu's experience, and he is not a spent force, SBW is the bloke to unleash in the playoffs in the name of winning the World Cup rather than defending it.

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So then there were five. Argentina, Wales or Scotland can't win the World Cup. They aren't good enough. The Springboks are my slight favourites, ahead of the All Blacks.

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A sad way for Tony Woodcock's career to end, limping off the World Cup stage with a hamstring tear. He was a new-age prop who re-defined the position. Banished were the overtly confrontational attitudes laced with thuggery, replaced by fitness, commitment, endurance and technique. As his front row partner Owen Franks has said, Woodcock steadied the All Black front row when it was desperately needed, and then took it to a place of tremendous respect.

But for all of his class, it is also time to take the position of prop to a new place for the All Blacks. Woodcock was not a consistently great ball runner, and that's what is needed. Australia are leading the way, with the amazingly athletic tighthead Sekope Kepu and rapidly rising star Scott Sio starring around the field and also doing the job at scrum time.

As for Tony Woodcock, he is an All Black great who was top quality and utterly dependable for an incredibly long time, a player more than happy to fly under the radar.