The wait is nearly over. Tonight we get to see Sonny Bill Williams unleash his highly-publicized self when he comes off the Canterbury bench against Bay of Plenty.

No one will be more interested in his performance than Graham Henry who, despite denials otherwise, must be under real pressure to select Williams for the end-of-season All Blacks tour.

The $64,000 question (petty change for $BW) is whether Money Bill can crack a spot in the All Blacks starting lineup. On present form he’d ride the pine, at best.

The emergence of Ma’a Nonu and Conrad Smith as a world class combination continues a fine tradition of great All Blacks teams being built around great midfield backs.

History would suggest such midfield pairings come along once in a decade. In my lifetime we’ve seen Ian MacRae and Bill Davis (1960s), Bill Osborne and Bruce Robertson (1970s), Warwick Taylor and Joe Stanley (1980s) and Walter Little and Frank Bunce (1990s).

Although Tana Umaga could lay claim to being our finest midfield back of the past decade, his combination with Aaron Mauger was not in the same league as the Nonu-Smith partnership.

Neither Nonu (2003) nor Smith (2004) could break into the starting lineup when they debuted for All Blacks. Nonu was a destructive game-breaker from day one but initially lacked the rugby guile, nous and polished passing so necessary for the midfield. You could not make that criticism of him now.

Smith, for his part, probably lacks the brilliant athleticism and pace of a Bruce Robertson but I doubt a smarter centre has ever graced the silver fern. It’s a truism that rugby is a game of brawn. Smith is proof that brains do not go astray either.

* Was yesterday, September 2, the greatest single day in New Zealand’s rich sporting history? That day certainly provided our greatest ever hour, 50 years ago, when Peter Snell (800 metres) and Murray Halberg (5000 metres) both won Olympic gold on the track at Rome in 1960 within 60 minutes of one another. Throw in the 1972 Olympic gold at Munich for the rowing eight (Tony Hurt, Wybo Veldman, Dick Joyce, John Hunter, Lindsay Wilson, Athol Earl, Trevor Coker, Gary Robertson and coxswain Simon Dickie) won on the same day and it’s hard to go past the second day of September.

* Keep a gap in your sporting diary for a celebrity fundraiser coming up in Riversdale on Friday, October 8, featuring one of this country’s best sporting raconteurs, Dick Tayler. The man who set the 1974 Commonwealth Games alight with his opening day heroics in the 10,000 metres, will be in Southland’s finest village for a fundraiser for World Youth Olympics triathlon champion Aaron Barclay.