{"id":12216,"date":"2012-07-09T00:23:15","date_gmt":"2012-07-08T22:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/07\/rpt-rugby-williams-to-put-all-blacks-career-on-hold\/"},"modified":"2012-07-09T00:23:15","modified_gmt":"2012-07-08T22:23:15","slug":"rpt-rugby-williams-to-put-all-blacks-career-on-hold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/rpt-rugby-williams-to-put-all-blacks-career-on-hold\/","title":{"rendered":"RPT-Rugby-Williams to put All Blacks career on hold"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>(Repeats with no changes)<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">MELBOURNE, July 8<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; Sonny Bill Williams will put<br \/>\nhis All Blacks career on hold to return to rugby league after a<br \/>\nstint playing in Japan, Australian media reported on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The muscular New Zealand centre had signed a lucrative deal<br \/>\nto play with Panasonic Wild Knights in Japan&#8217;s Top League and<br \/>\nwas also poised to announce a deal with the Sydney Roosters in<br \/>\nAustralia&#8217;s top-flight National Rugby League (NRL), Sydney&#8217;s<br \/>\nDaily Telegraph newspaper said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU), who coaxed Williams home<br \/>\nfrom Europe in 2010 with the lure of an All Blacks jersey for<br \/>\nthe World Cup, declined to comment on the report, but said they<br \/>\nhad scheduled a news conference in Hamilton on Monday with the<br \/>\n26-year-old and All Blacks assistant coach Ian Foster.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Williams, 26, played one season with the Canterbury-based<br \/>\nCrusaders in the southern hemisphere Super Rugby competition<br \/>\nlast year before crossing to the Chiefs this season.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Chiefs coaches Dave Rennie and Wayne Smith would also appear<br \/>\nat the news conference, the NZRU said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Dual international Williams began his professional career<br \/>\nplaying rugby league for the Sydney-based Canterbury Bulldogs in<br \/>\nthe NRL but controversially walked out on the team mid-season in<br \/>\n2008 to play rugby union with French club Toulon.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Ian Ransom; Editing by Patrick Johnston)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">\n<p>         \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Repeats with no changes) MELBOURNE, July 8 (Reuters) &#8211; Sonny Bill Williams will put his All Blacks career on hold to return to rugby league after a stint playing in Japan, Australian media reported on Sunday. The muscular New Zealand centre had signed a lucrative deal to play with Panasonic Wild Knights in Japan&#8217;s Top [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-12216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}