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SYDNEY - France-bound Sonny Bill Williams is talking All Blacks, while National Rugby League (NRL) chief executive David Gallop is talking possible arrest or seizure of assets as legal action began today.
Gallop and Bulldogs club chief executive Todd Greenberg emerged from meetings to confirm papers would be filed with the New South Wales Supreme Court seeking an injunction to stop Williams switching codes.
The Kiwis and Bulldogs star, 22, fled Sydney on Saturday, believed to be pursuing a two-year rugby contract worth $3 million with the Tana Umaga-coached Toulon.
He still has four years to run on his A$450,000 ($585,100)-per-year Bulldogs contract, and Gallop believed Williams may not be aware of the possible ramifications of breaking his contract.
The injunction would seek to restrain Williams from playing anywhere in the world, in accordance with his "watertight" contract with the Bulldogs, Gallop said.
"The consequences of breaching an injunction when put in place are that he is liable to contempt of court proceedings that can involve everything from arrest to seizure of assets," Gallop said.
"We're taking the matter very seriously."
Greenberg said their legal advice was they had "good prospects" of achieving a court injunction.
"We believe (the injunction) is enforceable, irrespective of which country he resides in."
Gallop yesterday called on the International Rugby Board (IRB) to get involved and block Williams' switch, saying contractural stability was vital to either code and to stand by would be a form of "international piracy".
But that seemed unlikely, with the IRB saying club rugby was a grey area.
"The club is entitled to take on whatever player they see fit," IRB spokeswoman Alison Hughes told Sydney's Daily Telegraph.
"Our jurisdiction is a player must make sure he is fit to play international rugby. The club contract is a very different animal."
Williams wouldn't comment when photographed at Singapore's Changi Airport last night, about to board a flight to London before travelling to France for possible talks with Toulon, new club of former All Black Jerry Collins.
Former league star and top boxer Anthony Mundine said he drove his friend Williams to Sydney Airport on Saturday, and spoke to him again last night.
Mundine said Williams told him he'd "done the right thing", and hoped to forge a successful career in rugby and potentially play for the All Blacks.
"He was unhappy and maybe he had new challenges, maybe the new challenge for him was to become an All Black," Mundine told the Sydney Morning Herald.
"He'd spoken to me about these things before so maybe he felt like he'd had enough of rugby league and that he had new challenges in rugby union and this was the first step."
Mundine said the only thing that was bugging Williams was he didn't have the opportunity to explain to his teammates and Bulldogs fans why he left. The unwelcome media attention in Sydney was a major reason.
"He's a bright boy and I know that he wasn't too happy with the club and with the game and with certain elements of the media.
".... He was pretty cool. Obviously he was a bit jittery because he would have probably been fearing the unknown but besides that he was pretty talkative.
"We had a couple of laughs but, at the same time, he was pretty serious as well. You could tell he was on edge but he'd obviously thought it through."
Meanwhile, Kiwis coach Stephen Kearney was philosophical as he contemplated Williams' probable absence from this year's World Cup.
"I've been working fairly closely with him over the last couple of months and he has a lot of issues that he's dealing with," Kearney told One News.
"It's just very sad for our game, not only from a Kiwi rugby league point of view but certainly from a rugby league point of view."
- NZPA
